


t 



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TRIBUTE TO KANE 



Other Poems. 

BY GEORGE W^^ CHAPMAN 



U^^ ^^<r^v OF coT^,-^ 




~--<^ 



NEW YORK: 

EuDD, & Carleto^j 130 Grand Street. 

M DCCC LX. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

GEO. W. CHAPMAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 
New- York. 



J . H . T B I T T , 
COMBINATION-TYPE PRINTER 

1 Franklin Square, N. Y. 



CONTENTS 



PA6B 

PEOEM 7 

A TRIBUTE TO KAOT: 11 

N0TE3 TO THE TRIBUTE TO KAJifE 32 

KARL 35 

NOTES TO KARL 80 

THE OLD DRAY HORSE 87 

l'inconnue 92 

ADDRESS TO THE COMET 95 

THE CURRENCY OF SIGHS 108 

THE SWALLOWS 114 

WHY don't he COME . ." 117 

THE DYmG SCHOOL BOY 120 

LITTLE EMMA 123 

I LATE HAD A FLOWER 124 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE EQUINOCTIAL 127 

GENTLE WOEDS 130 

OUR JULIA IN HEAVEN .' 132 

THE CHAUNT OF THE PANIC • 134 

CHATEAUX EN ESPAGNE 136 

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING 137 

PROGRESS 141 

THE SEASON.TO DIE 144 

AUTUMN 146 

THE WEALTH OF A STATE 148 

THE MUTENT OF THE SEPOYS 151 

FANATICISM 153 

A LEAP YEAR COMPLAINT 155 

NICARAGUA 158 

FAREWELL TO THE YEAR 160 



PROEM. 

To DROP, unseen, the sympathetic tear 
On well-deserving virtue's humble bier — 
To waft, unbid, the incense of thy lays, 
And modest worth embalm in modest praise — 
To weave a garland for the martyr-crown, 
Tliat deathless envy can no more pluck down — • 
To plant a flower beside the hero's tomb. 
Which, when the marble crumbles, still shall 

bloom — 
To tune a nation's voices into chime. 
And send the cadence down the reach of time — 
To trace, in thought, o'er ether's subtile seas. 
Beyond the pathway of the Pleiades, 
A sanctuary whose ecstatic rest 
Transcends the fabled " Islands of the Blest," 



O PROEM. 

And thitlier lead the beautiful and true, 
Whose deeds of love have ranked them with the 

few — 
Faith's bright alumni, in their hope made free — 
These be thy tasks. Immortal Poesy ! 



A TRIBUTE TO KAIfE 



A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 



Awake, my harp ! strike now, and not in vain, 
Thy flowing numbers to their loftiest strain ! 
Inscribe his name on Fame's heroic roll, 
Who bore our banner nearest to the Pole, PI 
Its clinging folds in Arctic frosts unfurled, 
And won the admiration of a world ! 

'Tis brave, amid tlie ranks of martial strife, 
To play the stake of fortune, honor, life — 
Mount to the breach above the deadly mine, 
Or madly charge against the serried line 
At Mars' command ; around whose gilded car. 
The " pomp and circumstance of glorious war," 



12 A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 

The battle's brazen note, the nodding crest, 
Tlie gloom, the flash, the shout inspire each breast, 
Sink coward thoughts, to daring deeds incite, 
And make the hind a hero in despite ! 

But Honor's trophies are not all from Mars — 
Its only blazons, War's enseamed scars ; 
And valor wins renown in other fields. 
Brighter than battle's crimson glory yields ! 

'Tis more than brave, on Mercy's errand bent, 
"Within the frigid ambit firmly pent — 
Where, locked in frost's inexorable arms. 
Or tossed, bewildered, in fierce Arctic storms, 
The explorer, led from some far, genial clime, 
By inspiration lofty and s,ublime, 
Meets only frowns from earth, and sea, and sky, 
Till constant Hope herself seems poised to fly — 
To watch, regretful, but without dismay. 
The last prized gleamings of the Polar day. 
As sinks its circling orb's diminished limb 
Below the circumscribed horizon's rim, 
And enter, groping, but without aff'right, 
Upon the threshold of a half-year's night ; — 



A TKIBUTE TO KANE. 13 

To quit the crushed and mangled ship, to go 
For dubious safety, on the shifting floe ; — 
To couch, fatigued, storm-driven, famished, lost, 
In the despondent realms of ceaseless frost ; — ■ 
To rise, unrested, to resist that sleep, 
So welcome, painful, blissful, fatal, deep ! 
Which lulls its victim with some pleasant dream 
Of home and fireside by his native stream. 
Who quits the imaged scene a loved one shares. 
To buffet death beneath the grey, cold stars ; — 
Still, unsubdued, the painful steps to urge 
Up to the continent's most northern verge, 
And pause before a heaving sea, which lies 
Spread from the feet to meet the drooping shies ; 
And list alone unto the surfs dull roar, 
That breaks, unceasing, on the rock-bound shore. 
Where it has warred, in restless rage sublime. 
Till now unwitnessed, since the birth of Time ! 

ISTature no more assumes her wonted modes 
In these drear wastes and gloomy solitudes. 
Tlie saddened landscaj^e bears no shrub nor tree 
To break its barren, cold monotony ; 



14 A TKIBUTE TO KANE. 

'No modest flower is seen, nor e'en is lieard 
The 1mm of insect or tlie song of bird. 
Fair Summer's gorgeous hues are here unknown, 
The gokl and crimson of her favorite zone ; 
But timid doth she nurse her tender hopes, 
In covert dells and on the southern slopes ; 
Her fruits, the lichen gray ; her forest trees. 
Too dwarfed to wave to her caressing breeze. 
Then tyrant Winter, chafing at delay. 
And grudging Autumn e'en a single day. 
Resumes at once his scepter and his sway. 
His shimmering flakes are sifting through the air. 
Whose eddying blasts the crystal burthen bear ; 
And Mature, in her deep recesses, thrills. 
As tempests charge the ramparts of the hills. 
And Ocean's frozen floods are dashed and poured 
On head-land bare, and up each dark fiord ! 

Nor less the changes, in the hosts that move 
Tlieir ordered courses, in the blue above. 
The Pole-star, which so long has led the way, 
And cheered the voyager with its constant ray. 
By slow degrees now to the zenith clomb. 
Gleams from the apex of the starry dome. 



A TKIBUTE TO KANE. 15 

He looks in vain upon the place where shone, 
The gems that sparkle in Orion's zone. 
'No longer o'er him rolls the accustomed Wain ; 
The Lynx and Bear, wheel througli the southern 

plain ; 
While all the glittering orbs that float on high 
Seem naught but aliens in their native sky. 

The mind imbibes the spirit of the change, 
'Nor backward more the teeming fancies range. 
Tlie toils, the cares of anxious mortals seem 
The half-remembered features of a dream. 
Laws, systems, men pass slowly from the view. 
The soul sees only, and the sights how new ! 

On the rapt vision now alone appears 

Tlie Heaven- wrought order of the circling spheres. 

Orb follows orb in limitless array. 

And marshaled millions throng the Milky- Way. 

Back to its elements the Earth resolves. 

As round the blazing center it revolves. 

And forms a mite, with undistinguished place, 

In that vast system which usurps all space, 



16 A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 

To swell the harmony which countless hosts 
Chant from Infinity's remotest coasts — 
Yast, and unending, pauseless, unbegun, — 
The mighty Anthem to the Holy One ! 

Oh War ! thy brightest, blood-stained lustre yields 
To glory wrested from the Arctic fields ! 
Thy hurried immolations pale their glow 
Before the martyrs of the realms of snow ! 
Thy flaunting colors, shamed, together roll 
When midnight's gaudy tints flash from the Pole — 
When ISTature all her hues celestial blends, 
And zenith-ward their coruscations sends. 
And radiant Aurora hangs on high 
Her gleaming banners in the northern sky ! 

Thy martial engines, toys and baubles are. 

In the rude shocks of elemental war ; 

Where heaving glaciers seek, with throbbing 

tread, 
The distant shore, from some high, inland bed ; 
And gravitating with stupendous force, 
Rend the firm hills in their resistless course ; — 



A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 17 

Wliere towering bergs, by hidden currents driven, 
Majestic move tbrough ice-fields crushed and 

T-iven, [^] 
Bearing aloft disrupted crags o'erthrown, 
To sow their fragments in another zone ! 

And didst thou nobly brave, Oh, gallant Kake ! 
The instant perils of the boreal plain, 
To solve the problem of the lost one's fate. 
And tidings bring to hearts all desolate ? — 
Eeturn, with broken health, but peerless fame, 
To meet thy grateful country's glad acclaim. 
Give to the world the record of thy toil. 
And die, lamented, on a foreign soil ? 

A foreign soil ! 'No soil was strange to thee, 
Thou denizen of man's community ! 
Thy country claims thy birth-place, but all lands 
Link thy proud name in con-fraternal bands. 
Thy fame is niched, in final resting place. 
Beside the Hoivards of the human race ; 
Nor lineage claims thee closer kindred, than 
The Universal Brotherhood of Man ! 



18 A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 

When the freed spirit, from the mortal clay 
Essays its untried wings to mount away, 
Tlie novel change its new existence fills — 
Each sight em-aptures, each emotion thrills ; 
The heavy earth sinks from the buoyant feet, 
As upward borne, with ecstasy replete, 
Tlie viewless essence shapes its heavenward flight, 
And spreads its pinions for the realms of light. 

Yet if, erewhile, within the earthly breast. 
One ruling passion, strong o'er all the rest, 
Hath reigned, unrivaled, and without control, 
And left its living impress on* the soul, 
The still reluctant spirit turns again. 
And lingers, yet among the haunts of men ; — 
Still heaven foregoes, imseliish, to attend 
The errant footsteps of a cherished friend : 
The loved one feels some holy presence near. 
The heart beats quickly, and forth starts the tear. 
The sobbing orphan feels his sorrows soothed. 
And knows the hand his pillow oft has smoothed ; 
The form that o'er him bends, so real seems. 
He murmurs,*' Mother !" in his troubled dreams. 



A TEIBUTE TO KANE. 19 

Around the altar, where the devotee 
Pours forth his orisons on bended knee, 
Tlie subtile forms of pious spirits steal, 
And with the just in silent homage kneel, — 
Join in the symphonies that upward swell, 
The anthem note, the thrilling organ's spell. 

The shades of statesmen throng the halls of state, 
And mutely mingle in the grave debate. 
Unseen, around the noiseless colleagues glide, 
Attentive listen, vote, consult, preside ; — 
Too often pained to note the lavish waste. 
The flagrant bribe, the rash, degenerate haste. 

The formless warrior strays o'er battle plains. 
Where still to him, the scene unchanged remains, 
llie marshaled foes in moving ranks appear. 
And rings anew the fierce, exultant cheer. 
The rival banners flout and toss on high, 
Amid the dun cloud mantling to the sky ; 
Hurtles again the fearful death-hail by. 
Here did he charge — there, wounded, weltering 
^ay, 



20 A tributp: to kai^e. 

And, dying, heard liis steed's im]3atient neigh ; 
Who, trained to wait, obedient, for tlie word, 
A moment paused beside his stricken lord. 
And maddening with the battle's frenzy, then 
Dashed, riderless, nnto the charge again. 
Formed with the hosts, advanced, retreated, 

wheeled 
Among the flying squadrons o'er the field ! 



^^hus, Kane, for thee Death had no venom-sting 
To rack thy spirit, or thy manhood wring. 
His welcome summons was a glad recall — 
A liberation from restraint and thrall, 
Which made thee proof against fatigue and pain, 
And free to range thy favorite fields again. 
Thy treasured ashes seek thy natal shores — 
But what far climes thy wafted soul explores ! 



Dost thou, exalted like the stars, and free, 
Now hover o'er that unknown "open sea," PJ 
Whose deathless tides, imbroken, ever roll 
In endless cyles round the concave Pole ? 



A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 21 

Does thy higli place enable thee to know 
What fires light up the Borealis' glow ? 
Dost thou around the Cynosure revolve, 
The needle's occult mysteries to solve ? 
Or calmly trace, from Heaven's cerulean plain, 
The hidden currents of the mighty main, — 
Discern their impulse, and, their course begun. 
The ordered limits of the race they run — • 
Where they divide, unite — how fast, or slow 
They thread, concealed, like life's arterial fiow. 
The grooves and channels of the depths below ? 

Dost thou, a spirit, guide thy spirit train^ 
In dizzy stages o'er the icy plain. 
Where fissured chasm and rough, impending wall 
The fearful struggle and death-throe recall ; — 
Now lost in mists, now blinded by the storm, 
Xow huddling with thy dogs to keep thee warm ; — 
Again the pangs of mortal hunger feel, — 
Again with Meteh hunt the hispid seal. 
And on the open atluh furtive steal ? 

Or dost thou visit, mournful, wandering back, 
The brig deserted, prisoned in the pack ; — 



5525 A TRIBUTE TO KAl^E. 

Review each wellknown scene of pain and woe, 
The towering glacier, and the rugged floe ; — 
The snow-grave, — whose pale tenant all alone. 
Awaits the judgment in the frozen zone ; — 
Whose form in adamantine mould congealed, 
No tribute to corroding Time shall yield, 
Till quickened by the Resurrection's glow, 
It bursts at last its spotless shroud of snow, 
And leaps, unchanged, from out its gelid bed. 
To swell the gathering army of the dead ! 

Thou canst sm-vey that open ocean's bourns. 
Whose fleeing shores each foiled explorer mourns. 
Which Nature fixes with a balance nice, 
Beyond the isotherms of endless ice ; — 
Where tropic currents, flowing through the deep, 
Attempered by their long, deflected sweep, 
Leap to the surface to commence again. 
Their refluent journey to the southern main ; 
And by their warmth, maintain an open space 
Around the northern limit of their race, — 
An oasis Vithin the ice-bound zone, 
With wind, and tides, and seasons all its own. 



A TRIBTJTE TO KANE. 23 

That " open sea !" What visions of romance 
Float o'er its mystical, unknown expanse ! — 
"Whose virgin waves have ne'er been made to feel 
The novel pressure of the cleaving keel ; 
Whose lonely bays and island ne'er rejoice 
In the blest mnsic of the human voice, — 
The infant's prattle, or the mother's tones 
In tender soothing of her little ones ; 
Around whose waste and solitary shores 
The Scandinavian Thor his fate deplores, 
And mythic Odin pours his frantic wails 
Unto the el van ocean's homeless gales ! 



Perchance thy ship, from its impacted bed 
By thaws released, its destined course has sped ; 
And, fanned by southern airs, a devious track 
Has, winding, won through the capricious pack ; — 
By instinct shunning each projecting cape, 
And threatening berg, in its compelled escape, 
Coasted the Glacier, and, each barrier past, 
Tempted alone the unknown sea at last ! 

Oh ! with a poet's frenzied eye, I see^ 
That bark careering on that phantom sea ! 



24: A TKIBUTE TO KANE. 

But not as erst, wlien, parting from lier port, 
And little recking of lier final sort, 
She dashed the billows from her prow, in rain. 
And bore her termless charter o'er the main ! 

"No master o'er her doubtful fate presides ; 
Her aimless flight no mortal pilot guides ; 
Her loosened cordage from her taffrail trails, 
And heedless of the jocund, passing gales, 
In fluttering streamers float her tattered sails. 
Her helm, her com'se now useless to compel, 
Slow oscillates to each pursuing swell 
Tliat laves her shelving stern, her sides, and now 
Breaks hoarsely on her idly eddying prow. 

Yet while she drifts upon the untried deep, 
Ethereal mariners her watches keep, — 
With plummet sound, or, from the swaying spars, 
Consult, in silence, new-discovered stars ; 
And airy seamen, swinging in the shrouds. 
With up turned faces, scan the flecking clouds ; 
Or, gathered round at some dim leadeji-'s beck. 
Hold spectral council on the mouldering deck I 



A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 25 

Still, oiiAA^ard flow that sea's eternal tides j — 
Still, on that fated ship forever rides, — 
And, doomed a wanderer ever to remain, 
All havenless upon that watery plain, 
Around, in an unchanging orbit flies, 
Like its twin vessel, Argo, of the skies ! 



Does thine emersion from the mould of clay — 
Does death's great change— illume thy spirit-ray. 
And scope of flight, and breadth, of vision give 
To know if Franklin's exiled comrades live ?^ 
To note on what inhospitable coast, 
The stricken " Terror^' " nipped^''' was crushed 

and lost 1 
Or where the " Erelus^^ by rash essay. 
To some remote and hyperborean bay 
Had forced a passage, but to be embraced. 
And held relentless, in the glacial waste ? — 
The while, the patient and enduring crew 
Wait the long night's slow moving marches 

through, 
And think the coming of the annual dawn 

Will loose the icy bands around them drawn. 

2 



26 A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 

The dawn arrived, has ripened into daj, — 
A day eventful in that silent bay ! 
For, spent with toil and wasting years gone by, 
Their chief and leader lays him down to die ! 

He, who from youth had wandered o'er the world, 
And England's flag on every sea unfurled, 
Had fondly hoped, his numerous voyages o'er, 
At length to die upon his native shore, — 
Am English breeze to bathe his aching head, — 
Am English sun-set smiling on his bed ! 

And there, remote, and lost to human kind. 
Yet unrepining, patient, and resigned, — 
His final orders given to his crew, 
Words of encouragement, low, faint, and few,*— 
The veteran seaman calmly tempts, at last, 
Tlie gulf between the future and the past ! 

No living tongue shall paint the touching grief 
With which they mourned their well beloved 
chief ! — • 



A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 27 

Ko grateful kin shall show how much they prize 
The hand that closed a kinsman's dying eyes ! — 
That tongue is hushed forever, and that hand 
Is bleaching now upon King William's Land ! 

And while the grave, that soothes his manly woes 

Is deeper buried by the annual snows. 

Afar, another fond Penelope 

Awaits her lost Ulysses, o'er the sea. 

Hope after hope has sprung, and failed, and gone, 

And still her woman's heart keeps hoping on. 

Her waking dreams reveal him sore beset. 

And struggling manfully with cruel fate. 

She sees the rock, the drift, the crushing floe-r— 

Where e'er she goes, the shifting phantoms go ! 

In garden, park, and bower, from copse and, tree, 

A pale face looks on her beseechingly. 

Search follows search, to be renewed again ; 

Her messengers have scoured the icy plain. 

Still, baffled quest, or lapse of rolling years. 

Cannot relax her watch or stay her tears. 

Oh, best of woman's love, the love of wife ! 

Next hope of Heaven, the dearest boon of life ! 



28 A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 

Again iu darkness and in deeper gloom, 
They wait and languish for the spring to come, 
Still hoping, feebly, that its kindly glow 
May melt their prison- walls of ice and snow, 
And leave the weak survivors free to go. 

In vain the second dawn! From shore to shore, 
Their land-locked anchorage, still fettered o'er 
Proclaims their bondage shall relax no more ! 
Tlie languid spring smiles, wan, and hopelessly, 
On shore, and ship, and on the frozen sea ! 
But while they wait the sun's prolonged delay, 
Disease and death are ravening on their prey. 
And Hope has fled. The long-wish'd morning light 
Reveals the half-veiled horrors of the night. 
Aghast they gaze upon each pallid form, 
Lean as the gaunt wolf, fasting in the storm, — ♦ 
Tlie shrunken features, and disheveled hair. 
The hollow eyes, that pay them back their stare ;— 
Then, feeling that to linger, is to die. 
One passion sways them— the desire to fly ! 

I see them take their march — that feeble band — 
Now o'er the hummocks^ now along the land ; — 



A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 29 

Tlieir gait imcertain, but tlieir straining eyes 
Bent with sad longing on the southern skies ; — 
Tlieir scanty numbers dwindling, day by day, 
The spent and weaker dropping by the way, 
And white-fanged wolves contesting, sore, with 

Death, 
The conquest of each victim's parting breath ! 

It imports naught, their wavering course to trace — 
What objects tm*ned, or checked their faltering 

pace, — 
'Now southward going, and now bending back, 
As failing reason marked the devious track ; — 
Where, in the last extremity of woe, 
Their natures vanquished to the utmost throe, 
The last sad group, together, laid them down, — 
Equal in sorrows — equal in renown ! — 
And calmly settled to the long repose, 
Wrapped in the mantle of eternal snows ! 

Tliy mental orb's expanded ken can tell 
If some survivor of the ruin fell, 



30 A TRIBUTE TO KANE. 

Still lingei'ing on tlie Arctic desert's shore, 

Pines for the home he ne'er shall visit more ; — 

Some haggard wretch, who sees, in dreams, at play, 

His fair-haired children, by the Trent, or Tay, — 

The cot — the green — the chiu'ch, whose clanging 

bell 

Is mingling in the scene's delusive spell ; — 

Through gelid winter's dismal, torpid woe, 

In fetid dens, huts with the Esquimaux / 

And still, with scarce sufficing strength to drag 

His limbs along, on some o'er-jutting crag, 

Keeps his lone vigils, each returning spring, 
Till fancy paints the tern's gray, glancing wing 

A distant sail, come o'er the opening wave. 

To bear him homeward from his living grave ! 



Farewell, illustrious Kane ! no blemish-stain 
Or taint of blood, or fraud, or sordid gain. 
Shall on thy cherished memory remain. 
But round thy grave the spotless lilies grow, 
In whiteness rivaling the Arctic snow — 
The fitting emblem of thy life below ! 



A TEIBUTE TO KANE. 

Thy skies with storms no longer overcast — 
Thy winter's bitterness forever past — 
Celestial flowers of an eternal -spring 
Upon thy path their vernal treasures fling — 
Around, the morning stars together sing ! 



And while thy thoughts review these scenes afar, 
As beams fall nightly from some radiant star, 
Thy spirit, made triumphant over space. 
May cope with light the universe to trace ; — 
Survey each orb from its peculiar sky — ■ 
Each gem that studs the empyrean high — 
Each new discovered star, whose rays emerge 
From the wide firmament's remotest verge. 
Whose light, thence parting at creation's birth, 
Hath not yet fallen on the distant earth ; — 
Spheres unimagined yet by finite man, 
Whose complex mystery in the general plan 
Eternity may not sufiice to scan ; — 
Transcend tlie bounds by angel footsteps trod. 
Exploring still the wondrous works of God ! 



NOTES 

TO THE TRIBUTE TO KANE 



[ij Who bore our hanner nearest to the Pole. 

This is not perhaps strictly correct, in point of fact, 
although it was originally written under the contrary im- 
pression. 

Without giving heed to the extravagant pretensions of 
some early Dutch navigators, who alleged that they had 
been carried, by winds and currents, as far as 88"^ north 
latitude, and one even to 89*^ 40', or within twenty miles 
of the Pole, since from the paucity and imperfection of their 
means of observation and reckoning, little reliance can be 
placed on their reports, the journals of former adven- 
turers indicate that quite as extreme northern latitudes had 
been frequently attained before the last expedition of Dr. 
Kane. 

In 1587, Davis ascended to 70° 12' north, and gave his 
name to the Strait that now bears it ; and twenty-eight 
years later, Baffin penetrated into the Greenland seas to 
latitude 81°. In 1751, Captain McCollum sailed, without 
obstruction, from Hackluyt^s Headland, as high as 83° 30', 
where he found an open sea. He reported that the weather 
was then fine, and that " nothing hindered him from pro- 
ceeding further but his responsibility to the owners for the 
safety of the ship." 

In 1754, Captain Wilson, having passed through floating 
ice from latitude 74° to 81^" north, found the sea quite clear 
from thence to 83°, and as fiir as he could descry beyond. 
But not meeting, any whales, " and heginning to apprehend 
danger., he turned back upon his course." 

Landsmen little know how much of the existing want of 
knowledge of the great Polar area is to be attributed to the 
apprehension confessed to by Captain Wilson. Sailors are 

(32) 



NOTKB. 33 



proverbially superstitious. The solitary pathways of the 
great deep are calculated to excite, to the utmost, all the 
inherent credulity and tendency to the marvelous in the 
human mind. At this day, even, the ancient superstition 
of the great body of seamen has lost little of its intensity. 
Those of that class engaged in the whale-fisheries, and 
whose observations in the Arctic regions have been, of all 
others, the most extended, while they deem a voyage to the 
Pole a physical possibility, have ever felt the most extreme 
reluctance to undertake it ; and have looked upon the waters 
surrounding the Pole as a tabooed region, sacred from the 
presumptive intrusion of man ; and have believed that any 
attempt to penetrate thither would entail certain punish- 
ment upon the rash mariner, who would never be permitted 
to return and disclose the nature of his discoveries. 

About the period of 1754, the date of Captain Wilson's 
voyage, above referred to, the northern waters must have 
been particularly free from ice, and the approaches to the 
Polar- Sea less obstructed than usual. During the same 
year, Captain Grey found his vessel to have attained nearly 
the same point; and Mr. Stephens, who was represented as 
a very skillful observer, reported to have reached the lati- 
tude of 84*^ 30' north, where, about the first of June, he 
met with little ice, and found the weather comparatively 
mild. 

In a still more recent attempt to reach the Pole — in 
1827 — Captain Parry, a reliable and experienced navigator, 
conducted an expedition from Spitzbergen, by means of 
sledge-boats, over the ice to about the latitude of 82^^ 45', 
where his further progress northward was rendered im- 
possible by the decayed condition of the floes and the 
southern drift of the ice. 

In all these instances the highest northern points were 
attained upon the waters of the ocean. It was the fortune 
of Kane to discover the most northern land, and to plant 
his country's cherished ensign upon the extremest outpost 
of the stable earth. 

[2] Majestic move through ice-fields crushed and riven. 
" But fortunately Arctic voyagers, who have cruised in 
the direction of Davis' Strait, have aftbrded us, by their ob- 
servations, proof positive as to this other source of sup- 
plying the Polar Seas with salt. They tell us of an under 
current setting from the Atlantic to the Polar Basin. They 
describe huge icebergs, with tops high up in the air, and of 



34 NOTES. 



course the bases of wliicli extend far down into the depths 
of the ocean, ripping and tearing their way with terrific and 
awful violence through the surface ice, against a surface 
current, on their way to the Polar Basin." Maury^s Pliij- 
sical Geography of the Sea,'''' § 534, p. 192. 

" December 18th, (1826.) It is awful to behold the im- 
mense icebergs working their way to the north-east from 
us, and not one drop of water to be seen. They are work- 
ing themselves right through the middle of the ice." 
Arctic Regions : Voyage to Davis'' Strait. By Dorea Duncan^ 
Master of the Ship Dundee. 1826, 1827. Page 76. 

[3] NoiD hover o^er that unknown^ open sea. 

" Dr. Kane reports an open sea north of the parallel 
82*^, To reach it his party crossed a barrier of ice 80 or 
100 miles broad. Before gaining this open water, he found 
the thermometer to show the extreme temperature of 60^. 
Passing this ice-bound region hy traveling north, he stood 
on the shores of an iceless sea, extending, in an unbroken 
sheet of water, as far as the eye could reach towards the 
Pole. Its waves were dashing on the beach with the swell 
of a boundless ocean. The tides ebbed and flowed in it, 
and I apprehend that the tidal wave from the Atlantic can no 
more pass under this ice-barrier, to be propagated in the 
seas beyond, than the vibrations of a musical string can pass 
with its notes a fret upon which the musician has placed his 
finger. ***** Seals were sport- 
ing and water-fowl feeding in this open sea of Dr. Kane's. 
Its waves came rolling in at his feet, and dashing with mea- 
sured tread, like the majestic billows of old ocean, against 
the shore. Solitude, the cold and boundless expanse, and 
tlie mysterious heavings of its green waters, lent their 
charm to the scene. They suggested fancied myths, and 
kindled in the ardent imagination of the daring mariners 
many longings." Maury^s Physical Geography of the Sea^ 
p. 176, §§ 484, 485. 



KARL 



KARL. 



As some dull sleeper turns to sigh 

And waken with a yawn, 
The drowsy night turns heavily 

Towards the coming dawn. 
The startled night-winds murmur by ; 

A ripple stirs the lake ; 
Along the sad, gray eastern sky 

The beams of morning break. 
A chirrup in the alder-bush 

Is answered from the fen. 
And to the summons of the thrush 

Responds the water-hen. 
On meads beyond, the mated larks 

Repeat each other's calls ; 
The leaping perch, in circles, marks 

The river where he falls. 



38 KARL. 



The notes that singly told, at first, 
. The waning of the night, 

Now mingle in a jocund burst 
To hail the welcome light. 



II. 

Yet not for all these signs of day- 
Did Karl, with sail and oar, 

In dubious mood, prolong his stay 
Eeside his cabin door. 

It was his wont to break his sleep 
Upon the loon's first call, 

And, out upon the misty deep, 
The morning to forestall. 

But now irresolute he stands, 
As he had ne'er before, 

Nor does he haste to loose the bands 
Which still his vessel moor. 

He gazes forth upon the lake, 
And upward to the sky ; 

He notes the course the plover take, 
As they go flitting by : 



KARL. 39 

And still he pauses by the strand, 

jN^or leaps upon the prow, 
And presses, as in thought, his hand 

Upon his throbbing brow. 

III. 

A dream that night had vexed his brain, 

And troubled him full sore ; 
And he had waked, and slept again. 

And dreamed it three times o'er. 
He thought, far out upon the lake, 

He heard a fearful sound : 
A sound that made him quail and quake 

Came from his fishing ground ; 
A fearful sound, as ne'er before 

Had steeped his soul in fears ; 
A fearful sound that never more 

He hoped might greet his ears. 

I V. 

He knew the loon's despondent call, 

The tern, and curlew's scream ; 
But more despondent still than all 

The w^ailino^ of his dream ! 



40 KARL. 

As of a liiiman voice distressed 



Between a moan and ciy, 
Of some poor wretch by fiends oppressed, 

In mortal agony ; — 
Low, plaintive, tremulous, at first, 

It came upon tlie air ; 
Then shrill, then harsh, as of a burst 

Of anguish and despair ! 
To Karl, whose ears upon it fed. 

It seemed a peal of woe — 
A diapason of the dead. 

Rung from their courts below ! 
He waked and wiped the briny stream 

That started from each pore. 
And slept, and waked, and slept to dream 

The same dream three times o'er. 



And this was why so thoughtful now, 

And doubtingly he stood. 
And pressed his hand upon his brow 

In dark and sombre mood. 



KARL. 4:1 

But when he heard, from craft afloat, 

The sounds come ringing clear, 
And knew a rival lisher's boat 

Shot round the harbor's pier, 
He loosed his shallop from the shore. 

The rower's hanG he took, 
In each row -lock he placed an oar, 

And bent him to the stroke. 
The feathery blades, with measured break, 

The glassy flood threw back, 
"Which hissed and gurgled in the wake 

Along his foamy track. 

V I. 

The sun uprose and glared away 

Towards the dusty land ; 
The cold waves writhed across the bay 

And dashed the passive sand. 
The wind blew fresh upon his bow. 

And glanced along the beam ; 
All day he urged the shallop's prow 

Against the subtile stream. 



42 KAKL. 

Behind on shore the objects fade 

And mingle in the bhie ; 
The gray gull, poised above his head, 

Screams forth her lonely " mew /" 
Afar, a single speck of white, 

Upon the billow's crest, 
Is dancing in the glancing sight, 

A creature of unrest. 
A nearer view a sail would show ; 

A nearer still, a deck ; 
Aod hull, and mast, and spars would grow 

Out of that little speck. 

VII. 

All day he urged the shallop's prow 

Against the steady breeze. 
All day the oars he plied ; and now 

His fishing ground he sees. 
The great, round sun went down the west 

Into the waters cold. 
And flushed the lake's resplendent breast 

With crimson and with gold. 



KAKL. 43 

The gull, that o'er his outward track 

Her mid-air way had fanned, 
At night's approach had turned back 

And sought the friendly land. 

VIII. 

And here away his gill-nets lie, 

Full seventy fathoms deep, 
"While up between them and the sky 

Two buoys the watches keep ; — 
Two painted buoys, and on a stem 

Each bears a little flag : 
Each time the wave rolls under them 

They give their heads a wag. 
Made fast to these, as to a dock, 

He lays him down to sleep, 
"While the subsiding billows rock 

His cradle on the deep, 
He lay and saw, with eyes half-closed, 

His buoys before him dim, 
To whom he nodded as he dozed, — 

Who nodded back to him. 



44 KARL. 



IX 



And thus he lay, while star by star 

Went up the azure arch, 
And all the astral hosts afar, 

In long triumphal march : 
And thus he lay, while Yenus led 

Abroad her nightly train ; — 
Until Auriga, high o'er head, 

Kolled up the glittering Wain ; — 
Until their wings the breezes fold 

And still the fretting wave, 
And- all around is drear, and cold, 

And silent as the grave ; — 
Until the chilly night-damps creep 

Along the hazy sea. 
And wrap the bosom of the deep 

In solemn mystery ; — 
Until the northern diver glides. 

Beneath the misty pall. 
Unconscious, to the shallop's sides, 

And croons her plaintive call. 



KAKL. 45 

Then up rose Karl, and turned an eje 

Out on the night's gray mask, 
Ate his black crusty and silently ~ 

Betook him to his task. 



His buoys aboard he got, and coiled 

The line down in the boat ; 
Took from the net, at which he toiled, 

Each sinker and each float. 
His net was pierced and torn in shreds. 

Twisted and turned awry : 
Up came, enmeshed, the slimy weeds, 

But ne'er a fish to fry. 
The mist up mounted to the sky. 

And many a bright star paled. 
The silent noon of night drew nigh, 

• And still he sat and haled ; — 
Upon the shallop's quarter sat. 

And bowed him to the rail ; 
And, hand o'er hand, his dripping net, 

Dripping, aboard did hale. 



46 KARL. 



X I. 



At length, just on the stroke of twelve, 

Tliat mystic midnight hour 
When witch, hobgoblin, ghost and elf 

An instant know their power, 
He felt a force resist his own ; 

The net came taut and slow. 
As if a burthen swayed it down — 

Swayed down the net below. 
" 'Tis some great fish," — says Karl, elate, 

" Some monster Mackinaw trout ; 
" And I will rap bim o'er the pate 

"For every mesh torn out!" 
Thus, haling, to himself he speaks, — 

Haling with might and main ; 
The boat beneath liim reels and creaks, 

And creaks and reels again. 



XII. 



Smiling, he o'er the gunnel bends 
To clutch the slippery prey ; 



' KAEL. 47 

Already he, in fancy, lands 

His prize npon the quay. 
While yet the thought his bosom warms, 

Responsive to his throes, 
Slowly, almost within his arms, 

A ghastly corpse up rose ! — 
Up rose, erect, a dreadful ]3rize. 

Entangled in the net ! 
Glared on him with great pearly eyes. 

In horrid Ute a tete ! 

XIII. 

Karl's heart stood still ; he scarcely breathed ; 

The flush forsook his face ; 
The pleasant smile his lips had wreathed 

Merged in a wry grimace. 
The corpse reached forth one slimy hand 

And placed it on his own ! 
Dead in his veins his pulse did stand ; 

He heaved a feeble moan. 
" Dost fear ?" The turgid dead man spoke ! 

Karl's heart within him sprung ! 



4:8 KAKL. 

Again the corpse tlie silence broke. 
And wagged its clammy tongue : 

XIV. 

''* Oh ! worker of uncounted doles I 

" Why hast thou wrought me this ? 
''" Why spread thy toils for human souls 

" Within tlie lake's abyss ? 
*' Why dragged me from the bottom, where 

" I knew nor day nor night, 
" Up to the unaccustomed air, 

" Up to the painful light ? 
" Two hundred years I've groped my way 

" Along the lake's deep groove, 
" Down where the sun-beams never play, 

" The waters never move. 

XV. 

" Two hundred years ! Yet I recall, 

" Beyond those cycles vast, 
" Tlie shadowy gloom of claustral hall, 

" The penance, and the fast, 



KAKL. 49 

" The cell, 'the habit that I wore, 

" When, my probation done, 
" I joined the Company whicb bore 

" The name of Mary's Son." 



XVI. 

(Karl started at the fearful word, 

And sought to turn away. 
The dead man, with his grasp abhorred, 

Compelled him yet to stay.) 

XVII. 

" The gorgeous Louis wore the crown 

" Of France, then in her prime, 
" The splendors of whose court flash down 

" Still, from that distant time ! 
" Around that monarch, gleaming ranks 

" Of haughty nobles stood, 
*^Who traced, through lines of valiant 
" Franks, 

" To Charlemagne their blood. 
3 



60 KAEL. 

" And these were France's fighting men : 

" The peasant wrought the bread : 
" No middle classes clamored then 

" Of politics and trade. 
" But through those ranks of blood and worth 

" The cassock made its way ; 
" And in the proudest Court on earth, 

" My Order's serge of gray 
" Precedence took of chivalry, 

" At tournament and feast ; 
" And knights in mail and panoply, 

" Uncovered to the priest ! 

XVIII. 

" But power and place, for these alone, 

'' My order never sought : 
^' Such means a worthy end might own, 

" Indeed Zc>?/<9/(2 taught. 
" "We levied, but to save the lost, 

^' From rank, and w^ealth, and power, 
" To launch a proselyting host 

"On every foreign shore. 
"The conquest of a world we sought — 



KAKL. 51 

" Sought it in Jesus' name — 
" And to the work a zeal we brought 

" Like a consuming flame. 
" Through savage wilds, 'mid perils sore, 

" O'er wastes, and quaking moss, 
" Alone, the poor Franciscan bore 

" His chalice, cope, and cross. 
" Already where the soldier came 

" To claim those regions vast, 
" And hold them in his monarch's name, 

" The Jesuit had passed ! 
" The glory of the old crusades, 

" Where numbers nursed their zeal, 
" Beside his self-denial fades 

" Whose fate these wilds conceal. 
*^ The fervid Genius of Eomance 

" Indulged in wildest dreams 
" Amid the forests of New France, 

" Its mountains, lakes, and streams. 



62 KAEL. 



XIX. 

" Again upon the evening air 

" I hear the vesper bell, 
" And neophytes go forth to prayer — 

" But not from cloister-cell. 
" An autumn sunset's ruddy glows 

'' Fall on a sheltered lee, 
" Along whose sandy margin flows 

" A tideless in-land sea. 
" 'No lofty turrets upward spring 

" From massive, ancient piles ; 
" No soothing chimes their echoes ring 

" Through dim cathedral aisles. 
" But high above, God's ample arch 

" Bends o'er their simple shrines 
" Displayed beneath the towering larch 

" 'Mid aisles of sighing pines ! 



KAEL. 53 



X X. 



" The simple warriors of the wold 

" Behold, ^vith childish awe, 
" The Pere^ by signs and words, unfold 

" The tenets of God's law. 
" To their material minds, the forms 

" And symbols of our rites 
" Appear replete with novel charms, 

" And fraught with new delights. 
" They view, with undisguised surprise, 

" Our Lord upon the tree, 
" And pity glistens in their eyes 

" At Mary's agony. 
" The ' Judgment ' scene their wonder 
claims, [^] 

" Which, gravely, each expounds ; 
" While at the sight of Tophet's flames 

" Their raptures know no bounds. 

XXI. 

" We thought the deep attention given 
" An augury that grace 



54 KARL. 

" Was working, like the holy leaven, 

" In tlieir benighted race. 
" Yet now I fear redemption's scheme, 

" As taught by Holy Church, 
" Presented to their minds a theme 

" Too subtile for their search. 
" While with religion's forms they toyed, 

" They let its essence go ; 
" And when their childish tastes were 
cloyed, 

" They ceased the outward show. 

XXII. 

" I love to linger o'er each scene 

" So long now passed away : 
" Still memory paints in fadeless green 

" The old Acadia ! 
" The perils of the forest path — 

" The toils — the fasts — the pains — 
" To those meek warriors of the faith 

" Were counted but as gains, p] 
" The pride and bickerings of the great, 



KA.RL. 55 

" The love of pomp and praise, 
" Involved in war state after state, 

" Till Europe was ablaze : 
" 'No wave of strife readied our retreat, 

" TTo bolt lit up oui* air ; 
" In otlier lands the tempest beat, 

" But set its rainbows there ! 



XXIII. 



" Long had the thought my mind possessed — 

'^ From tales heard when a boy — 
" That in the regions far south west, 

" Beyond the Jlinois, [^] 
" Were kingdoms populous and old, 

" With towns and cities fair ; 
" And wealth untold, in pearls, and gold,- 

" And gems, abounded there. 
" That down through vales of fertile lands, 

" A river flowed full free 
" A thousand leagues o'er golden sands, 

'' To the Yermillion Sea ; [*] 



66 ' KARL. 

" So deep that^sliips, on trade intent, 
" Along its course might wind, 

" And, compassing the continent, 
" Attain the Eastern Ind. 



XXIV. 

" And Mazarin, when first in France n 

" I planned this western tour, 
" Had charged me, if by any chance 

" I found it in my power, 
" That I should coast the soathem lake 

" Unto its utmost bounds, 
" And thence an expedition make 

" Through those enchanted grounds, 
" Till, issuing from the north, there came 

" The river of my dream ; 
" That I might link his crafty name 

" With that immortal stream. 

XXV. 

" 'Twas in the autumn of the year 
When Allouez came on n 



KAEL. 



57 



" And met the tribes in council near 

" To old Chegoiemegon. 
" There came the painted Sioux, the Sacs, 

" The Hnrons of the north, 
" The Outagamis from the Fox, 

" Miamis from the south : 
" And from the wondrous plains south- 
west, 

" Whose annual fires destroy 
" All forest life, came with the rest 

" The gallant Ilinois. 
" These, with their tales of sorrow, came, 

" Of greatness and decay, 
" The glories of an ancient name 

" Now fading fast away ; — 
" Of feuds and raids, wars, feints, alarms, 

" Attacks at dead of night, 
" Of combats, with unequal arms, 

" Of vanquishment and flight ; 
" For those who 'scape, what future woes ; 

" What fate for those who fail 
" When flying from the prowling foes 

" Who hang upon their trail. 



68 KAKL. 



XXVI 



" They told liow in tliose tree-less lands 

" Were herds of fatted beeves, 
" That, unmolested, grazed in bands, 

" As countless as the leaves : 
" Of mighty rivers' to the west ; 

" And one, the " Mes-sipi, p] 
" Which bore the waters of the rest 

" Unto the Southern Sea. 

XXVII. 

" Among their numbers was a brave, 

" For prowess widely known ; 
" With air as staid, and face as grave 

" As any carved stone ; 
" Of fiowery speech, yet terse, and brief ; 

" The spokesman of his band : 
" And I besought the haughty chief 

"To lead me to his land. 
" I told him of the Christian's faith ; 

" Of Adam, and the fall ; 



KARL. 59 

" Of God's Own Son, who suffered death 

" To save the lives of all : 
" Of heaven, and all the joys of those 

" Who gain admission there ; 
" Of hell, its torments, and the woes 

" Of those condemned to fire. 



XXVIII. 

" I painted — what he heeded more — 

" The greatness of my king ; 
" The glories of the crown he wore ; 

" The memories that cling 
" Around his ancient monarchy 

" Ten centuries upborne ; 
" The victories, by land and sea, 

"That Louis' name adorn. 
" Alliance with this king I pledged, 

" All powerful though afar, 
" Against the Iroquois, who waged f] 

" Their long, relentless war. 
" I showed the wonders traffic wrought — 

" What changes would be made. 



60 KARL. 

" "When up their noble stream were brought 

*' Huge sliips for inland trade ; 
" And Commerce, from the Southern Sea, 

" Should link, with golden chain, 
" The valley of the Mes-sipi, 

" And islands of the Main ! 
" Already then I hailed the day — 

" Whose dawn has now begun — 
" When rising states should crowd the way 

" Towards the setting sun ; — 
" Enfranchised peoples — in my dreams — 

" And tribes regenerate ; 
" And saw their future glory-beams 

" Flash through the Western Gate ! 

XXIX. 

" Well, he consented. I could see 
" What feelings had their share 

" In winning him, though tardily, 
" To schemes to me so fair. 

" He thought how much his influence 
^' And fame might be increased, 



EABL. 61 

" K, in returning, he should thence 

" Lead back the ' black-robe' priest. 
"' A jealous pride he did profess — 

" A very venial sin ! — 
" To have his tribe alone possess 

" So great a ' medicin.' 
'' And he proposed that we should quit 

" The council quite alone, 
" And leave Chegoiemegon while yet 

'' Our purpose was unknown. 

XXX. 

" A light canoe lay in a nook 

" Of alders by the shore, 
" And thither liastily we took 

" My little chapel's store ;— [^] 
"My psalter, bell, cross, chasuble, 

" A chalice, but no wine : 
" This meager catalogue may tell 

" How humble was my shrine ! 
" And now behold me launched, at last, 

" In that great enterpribC 



62 KARL. 

" Which during all my wakeful past 
" Had loomed before my eyes, 

" Until its mention made me feel 
" My very heart dilate : 

*• Alas ! ambition, more than zeal, 
'• Impelled me to my fate ! 

XXXI. 

' T'was early dawn when we embarked, 

"And I could just discern 
" A female figure, which I marked 

" Was crouching in the stern. 
" I questioned not. An idle tongue 

" Betrays a lack of sense ; 
" And I liad known their ways too long 

" To lightly give offence. 
" It seemed the chief, o'er plain and flood, 

" Had sought the council-fire, 
" Straight as the wood-dove seeks its brood, 

" Whose pinions never tire. 
" And as the doves their journeys make, 

" Up borne on equal wing, 



KARL. 63 

" He and his squaw had sought the lake, 

" Like mated doves in spring. 
" And when the chief his paddle took, 

'^ Jhe woman dipped her own, 
" As if bj secret sign or look 

" Each other's thought was known, 
" And silently with sinews strong, 

"They plied accordant oars, 
" And sent the glancing boat along 

" The lake's indented shores. 
" But when the rising day awoke 

" The songsters of the grove, 
" And morning's sylvan carols broke 

" From out each wooded cove, 
" The Indian woman loosed her tongue, 

" And warbled with the rest ; 
" And long her merry tinklings rung 

" In ears that loved them best. 

XXXII. 

" And thus we toiled each autumn day, 
" And touched the beach at night 



64 KARL. 

" To rest and eat, and tlien away 

" With early morning's light. 
" We coasted Tracy Lake, at length, 

"- Its southern bend around, 
" To where its waters, gathering strength, 

" Burst through their rocky bound ; 
" The newly-founded mission passed — 

" Saint Mary of the Sault— 
" And launched our fragile boat at last 

" Upon the lake below. 

XXXIII. 

" Oh Love ! What dolors does thy name 

*' Invoke ! malignant Boy, 
" Whose pitiless yet amorous flame 

" Consumed unhappy Troy ! 
" What wandering shades in Hades lost 

" Are maddening with thy wounds ! 
" Through history's flights, on every coast 

" Some victim's cry resounds. 
" Mad Cleopatras court thine asp 

" And from its fangs expire ; 



KAKL. 65 

" And Didos, struggling in thy grasp, 

" Ascend the funeral pyre. 
" I marvel that the scriptures give 

" Kot pinions, and thy make, 
" To him who duped the woman, Eve, 

" Disguised like a snake 1 

XXXIV. 

" Yet what were this poor pagan god's 

" Blind vagaries to me ! 
" And how should his capricious nods 

" Affect my destiny ? 
"To Celibacy I was wed, 

" And sealed with holy vows. 
" In me all carnal thoughts were dead ; 

My Order was my spouse ! 
" I knew him not, and yet I knew 

" One of his progeny — 
" The fiercest of the morbid crew, 

" And first-born — Jealousy I 



66 KAEL. 



XXXV. 



" The heart of man is obdurate, 

" Inflexible and hard ; 
" By pride, distrust, self-will, and hate, 

*' Access to it is barred. 
" Of finer mould is woman formed ; 

^' Impressible and kind : 
" With novelty, her heart is charmed, 

" And impulse rules her mind. 
" Her lively sense incessant roves 

" In some untrodden path : 
" To that which most her feelings moves 

" She readiest yields her fiiith. 



XXXVI. 

" The chief the gospel message heard 

" Sedate, and passionless. 
" No undisclosed emotion stirred 

" A feature of his face. 



KARL. 67 

" Not so Chetee, his artless squaw ; 

" Clietee, tlie pelican, 
" Keceived, with simple woman's awe, 

'' The word revealed to man. 
*' She grieved to know her sex the cause 

" Of death to all the race ; — 
'' Rejoiced to find how plenteous was 

" Redemption's saving grace ; — - • 
*' Deplored the crucial agony 

" With which it was achieved ; 
" "Wept o'er the sufferings on the tree, 

" Loved — pitied — and believed. 



XXXVII. 

" I hailed conviction with delight, 
'-'- And craved the chief's assent 

" To seal my loving neophyte 
" With holy sacrament. 

" This he refused : and all my art 
"Was futile to unbend 

" The stern resolve that steeled his heart 



GS KARL. 

" Mj purpose to defend. 
'^ I could not then liis motive see — 

" I see It clearer now ! — 
" But what were his resolves to me ? 

" They could not change my vow ! 
" The deed must follow what is willed, 

" MalgrS the pangs it costs : 
" All hearts must bend, all objects yield 

" Before Loyolah hosts ! 

X X X v I I I . 

" "While on we fared the autumn days 

" Ran smoothly all in one, 
" And Indian Summer's dreamy haze, 
• " Like a child's sleep, came on. 

" Along the shore, the changing trees 

" Put on their robes of gold ; 
" The sun down through the amber seas 

" Mid gilded islets rolled. 
" One evening, in the Puant's Bay, 

" We early made the land, 
" And having haled, as if to stay, 



KARL. 69 

" Our boat up on the strand, 
" The chief went forth to seek the chase, 

" And left unto his wife — 
** As is tlie custom of this race — 

" Tlie humbler cares of life. 
" We landed in a sheltered nook 

" 'I^eath banks with cedars crowned, 
'' Down which there danced a crystal brook, 

" With pleasant gurgling sound. 

XXXIX. 

" And now the hour — we thus alone — 

" Was fitting, and the place, 
" With the baptismal rite to crown 

" In her the work of grace. 
" This I proposed : yet she was loth, 

" And long with her I strove. 
" She feared to tempt her husband's wrath ; 

" She feared to lose his love. 
" She yielded with a woman's grace — 

" Cansenting — yet afraid ; 
" While on her pure and childish face 

" Contending passions played. • 



KARL. 



X L . 



" The rite performed, I kissed away — 

" I cannot tell you why ! — 
" A tear that down her cheek did stray 

" From each dark, melting eye ! 
" And then — Oh ! impulse frenzy-born 

" Tliat madness did impart 
" To one demented and forsworn ! — 

" I pressed her to my heart ! 
" And she did not resist ; perhaps 

" She thought my warm embrace 
" A closing rite to bar her lapse 

" Back from her present grace. 



X L I . 



" But ha ! She starts ! a pallor steals 
" Quick o'er those features fair : — 

" Down, gliding from my grasp, she kneels 
" In impotent despair ! 

" I followed where her gaze was set 
" Upon the wall of green. 



KARL. 71 

" And lo ! two orbs of liquid jet 

" Gleamed tlirougli the leafy screen ! 
" Transfixed I stood, and gaze for gaze 

" Gave back those ejes unto : 
" My own dilated with amaze ; 

" Tliose -pierced me through and through ! 
" And in their depths I scanned a page 

" Lit with their flashing fire : — 
" Love, envy, jealousy, and rage, 

" Kancor and vengeance dire ! 
" An instant mine relaxed their strain, 

" Diverted by a moan, 
" And when their glance returned again, 

" Those glittering orbs were gone. 

X L I I . 

" Chetee was kneeling at my feet, 
. ^' Her drooping lids now closed ; 
" Her tearful, girlish face so sweet, 

" Uj)on her breast reposed. 
" I breathed her name — she raised her 
head — 



72 KARL. 

" N o time was there for more — 
^' Tlie Iliuois, witli noiseless tread, 

" Appeared upon tlie sliore. 
" We launched the boat, he waved the way 

" Our altered course now bore, 
" Straight trom the land, across the bay, 

" Towards ' La Porte des Morts.'Q'') 



X L I I I . 

" Tlie sun went down behind the pines 

" And lit them all abhize ; 
"• Tlie rippling tide, in wavy lines, 

" Gave back the goklen rays. 
" The sun went down : ujjon the flood 

'• Tlie Moon her silver shed, 
" And in her light all night we rowed, 

" By her our course we laid. 
" All night we rowed, and not a word 

" AVas spoke above the breath ; 
" And when the morning's light appeared 

" ^Ye readied the Door of Death." 



KARL. 

" Within the ' Door ' my toil I ceased, 

" I raised my eyes, and lo ! 
" I saw athwart the tinted east, 

" The morning's crimson glow. 
" ' Ave Maria P — scarce the morn 

" Had heard the hail I gave, 
" "When suddenly I was up borne 

" And dashed upon the wave ! 

X L I V . 

" Cold — cold ! the parted surges swept 

" And gnrgled in my ears ! 
" Around my stifling heart they crept, 

" And dimmed my bursting spheres ! 
" I struggled not — I could not swim — 

" And as I sunk from sight, 
" I saw the chief tower, swart and grim, 

" Up to his utmost height : 
" Triumphantly he swayed aloft 

" -My little chapel bell :— 
" Down through the waters, dimly soft, 

" Its silver echoes fell ! 



73 



74 KARL. 

" But with a harsh and frenzied clang 

" The knell discordant ends, 
" As if some devilish sexton rang 

A jubilee for fiends ; 
" And after me, in mocker j, 

'^ The useless hell was thrown ! 
" I heard its smothered click go by, 

" As it gyrated down ! 

X I. V . 

" Slowly I sank. The light expired. 

" I felt no sense of pain : 
" A nameless throb my eye-balls fired, 

" And on my beating brain 
" A thousand faded memories, 

'' With all their tints refreshed — 
' ' Joys — hopes — regrets — ^lo ves — sorro ws- 
ties — 

" In quick succession flashed ! 

X L V I . 

" Down — down ! But not to die, for still 
" My limbs, my thoughts were free ; — 



KARL. 75 

" And 'then I knew tlie miracle 

" That Christ had wrought in me. 
" For on the blackness of my night, 

" As stamped by God's own ire, 
" My sentence blazed in lines of light 

" And characters of fire : — 
" My rank -transgression to atone, 

" Two hundred years below 
" Was I adjudged to grope alone 

" In purgatorial woe ! 



X L V I I . 

" Down — down ! I sought the water's bed 

" And felt about the plain ; 
" ITor mete, nor bound, nor land-mark had 

" My unexplored domain. 
" And then I sought to find the groove 

" And valley of the lake, 
" Through which its sluggish currents move 

" Their exit thence to take, 
" That, tracing back tlie sinuous crack, 

" Up to its shelving source. 



76 KARL. 

" I still might grope along the track 

" Upon my destined course ; 
" And when my penance dire should end, 

" As near as it might be, 
" I from my prison should ascend, 

" Towards the Mes-sipi ! 
" For know, that from his cherished aim, 

" When faith the purpose nerves ! 
" Through space, through time, through 
flood and flame, 

" The Jesuit never swerves ! 



X L V I I I . 

" Oh ! I could tell, but did I choose, 

" Of wonders that abound 
" Down in the regions of the ooze 

" And caverned aisles profound : 
" The horrid Saurians' massive bones 

" The deep chasm drifted down, 
" And skeletons of mastodons, 

" And monsters all unknown ; 
" Coevals of the planet's birth. 



KARL. 77 

" And marvelous tliey are, 
" Those relics of the pristine earth 

" In darkness garnered there ! 
" The wrecks of navies, which, before 

" Our histories began, 
" Along: these inland waters bore 

" Gigantic types of man ! 
" Savans would gloat upon the charms 

" Of vestiges so rare ; 
" But I have clambered o'er their forms 

" Through ages of despair ! 



• XLI X . 

" Two hundred years ! — I must below — 

" My hour, I trust, is near — 
" But every moment wasted now 

" Adds to my term a year. 
' Quick ! — if thou wouldst escape my ban- 

" Resolve this mazy woe ! 
" Release me, wretched fisherman ! 

" Release, and let me go !" 



78 KABL. 



Karl did not move : his rigid form 

A callous stupor held, 
As if some hag, with magic charm. 

His very soul had spelled. 
The dead man fixed on him his eye : — 

Karl's sinews lost their force ; 
A tremor shook him fearfully ; — 

It was the Jesuit's curse ! 
He looked not up, but still he knew 

That eye its purpose held, 
And 'neath its fearful ga^e he grew 

As weak as any child. 
Down went the net — down went the corse — 

The long line all out run, 
And round and round, with gathering force, 

The dizzy shallop spun. 

LI. 

Prone on his back, the fainting Karl 
Along its bottom lay : 



KARL. 79 

He saw above the stars awhirl, 

And swooned in dread dismay. 
When he awoke he was alone ; 

The sun shone on the sea ; 
His nets, his bnoys, his oars were gone ; 

He floated lielplesslj. 
The landward breeze sprung up at last, 

And, with a seaman's fetch, 
He rigged a stumpy jury-mast 

And drifted to the beach. 



NOTES TO KARL 



\ 1 ] The " Judgment'''' scene their wonder claims j 
Which, gravely, each expounds. 

" Besides these exercises of piety wliicli were carried on 
" hi the village, the Father assembled the savages in his 
*' little chapel, where he had three large pictures proper for 
" the iDstruction of these people; the one, of the general 
" judgment, at the top of which the parents were happy that 
*• they were made to remark the place which their baptised 
" children held ; and at the foot, they saw with horror the 
" torments which the devil endured there. In the second 
" picture were painted twelve emblems, each of which con- 
" tained an article symbolical of the apostles. 

" The third exhibited Jesus dying on the cross. The 
" zeal to come and pray to God before these pictures, 
" and to receive instruction there, was so great that many 
" children came through the snow, with naked feet, for 
" more than a quarter of a league of distance, which they 
" had to travel." — Jesuit Relations of 1671. 

[ 2 ] To those meek warriors of the faith. 
Were counted hut as gains. 

There is a sublimity in the self-denjing zeal of those 
enthusiastic missionaries of the cross which the ornate lan- 
guage of the historian, or the poet cannot exhibit with half 
the vividness of their own simple relations, contained in 
their annual reports of the state of the missionaries, made to 
the Superior of the Order at Quebec. 

" * * * I gave them for guides on their path 
" to salvation. Father Leonard Garreau and Father Gabriel 
" Dreuillettes, ancient evangelical workers, well versed in 
" the Huron and Algonquin languages. They were rejoiced 



NOTES. 81 

" to find themselves chosen to be the first to carry the name 
" of Jesus Christ into a country alike replete with tribula- 
" tion, darkness, and death." — Rel. 1655-6. 

" The last of these missions of which I shall speak at 
" present, is the one that we commenced this year, at the 
" first opening that presented itself for one, in order that 
" we might not miss another opportunity that God should 
" give us for the conversion of our savages. It is true that 
" the path which we are obliged to travel is stained with 
" our blood ; but it is this blood that increases our courage, 
" as it did that of the elephants spoken of in Maccabees. 
" And the glory of those who have died for Jesus Christ in 
" this expedition renders us more jealous than timid. * * 

" As soon as my Lord Bishop of Petriee had learned of our 
" intention to commence this mission, it is scarcely credible 
" how much he appeared to favor it. His zeal, which embraced 
" every thing, and to which the ocean could not set bounds, 
' caused him to wish that he might himself be one of these 
^ happ3^ expounders ; and, at the expense of a thousand 
' lives, to go in search, in the most profound depths of these 
' forests, of the lost sheep for whose welfare he had crossed 
' the seas. 

" It must be acknowledged that the enterprise is glorious, 
' and that it gives promise of an abundant harvest, consider- 
' ing the number of nations that inhabit these countries; 
" but ' eiintes ihant, et jiehant mittenf.es semina sua f this 
" rich harvest can be gathered only by watering these 
" grounds with sweat, with tears, and with blood." — Rel, 
0/1659, pages 148, 150. 

[ 3] That in the regions far soiUh-ioest, 
Beyond the " i/mo/s." 

Lake Michigan. This lake was also called " Lake Dau- 
phin," by the early explorers; and Father Allouez, " in 
" honor of the patron of all Canada," conferred upon it also 
the name of St. Joseph : but upon Marquette's Map it was 
called Lac Des Ilinois. 

[ * ] A thousand leagues o'er golden sands ^ 
To the Vermillion Sea. 

Although the Mississippi River was known in the early 
part of the sixteenth century, the Jesuit Fathers, who ex- 
plored the country of the Great Lakes, seem to have received 



82 NOTES. 

from the natives who visited the missions, accounts of a great 
river to tne west, without connecting it with the Rio del 
Espiritu Santo of the Spaniards. Perhaps the discoveries 
of De Vaca and De Soto were unknown to them ; for after 
the lapse of little more than a century from the time of 
these discoveries, we lind them indulging in speculations as 
to the probable course and ultimate embouchure of the 
Great River, like the following : 

" Several days' journey from the Mission of St. Francis 
" Xavier, which is at the Bay of the Puants, is found a 
" great river, more than a league in width, which, rising in 
" the north, follows towards the south, and so far, that the 
" savages- who have navigated this river, searching for 
" enemies to fight with, after man}' days of navigation, have 
'^ failed to discover the moutli, which can only be towards 
" the Gulf of Florida, or that of California."— /2e^. 1069, 
IKige 11. 

" When the Ilinois come to the point, [Chegoiemegon,J 
" they pass a great river which is almost a league in width. 
" * * * It is hardly probable that this great 
" river discharges itself in Virginia : we are more inclined 
" to believe that it has its mouth in California." —Marquette^ 
Rel. 1GG9. 

" These people [the Ilinois] , are placed in the midst of 
" the beautiful country of which we have spoken, towards 
" the great river called the Mississippi^ of which it is well 
" to set down here what we have learned of it. It 
" seems to act as the compass of all our lakes, taking its rise 
" in the regions of the north, and flowins; towards the south 
" until it discharges itself in the sea, which we judge to be 
" either the Vermillion Sea, or that of Florida."— iJe^. 1670. 

[ 5 J And Mazarin, when first in France 
1 2)lanned this western tour. 

Cardinal Mazarin was the Prime Minister of Louis XIII. 
The Mississippi bore the name of Colbert, his successor and 
minister of Louis XIV., a considerable period. 

I 6 ] ^Ticas in the autmmn of the year, 
When Allouez came. 

Claude Allouez was one of the earliest and most enthusi- 
astic of the Jesuit Fathers in the north-west. He sailed 
from France in 1658, and was made Superior at Three Rivers, 



NOTES. 83 

in 1660 J but, coveting the glory of the actual perils of the 
missionary enterprrise, he embarked with a returning band 
of Algonquins — whom, in his joy at meeting, he calls the 
" Angels of the Upper Algonquins" — and after great hard- 
ships, and much cruel treatment at the hands of the savages, 
he arrived at Lake Superior (then called Lake Tracy), and 
established the Mission of the Holy Ghost, at the Ojibwa 
village of Chegoiemegon, in the autumn of 1665. 



7 ] A7id one, the 3Ies-sipi, 

Which bore the waters of the rest 
Unto the Southern Sea. 



The early geographical nomenclature of this country was 
far from being uniform. The Mississippi River was known at 
different periods — if not indeed at the same period — as the 
Rio del Kspiritu Santo, the Colbert, and the river De la Con- 
ception. It bears the latter name upon JNIarquette's Map. 
The Indians of the country do not appear to have had any 
strictly proper name of it. They called it, simply, in their 
language, the great river — Mlssi-sepe. 

Doubtless the first rendering this appellation ever had in 
a written language, was in the Relations of the Jesuits ; and 
in a description of the " Mission of the Ilimonec," the nar- 
•rator says : " This is a tribe that dwells to the west of this, 
" towards the great river called the Mis-dpl.'''' — Rel. 1664, 
2)age 106. 

Marquette, in his Narrative^ spells the word indifferently 
as Missispi, and Blis-sisipi. 

[8j Against the Iroquois loho waged 
Their long, relentless war. 

" Whoever will arrest or subdue the rage of the Iroquois, 
" or can point out the means of gaining their good-will, will 
" open the doors of all these countries to Jesus Christ." — 
Rel. 1640. 

" They jthe Ilinois], were once a populous nation, occu- 
" pying ten large villages, but now they are reduced to two ; 
■•' continual wars with the Nadoussi on one side, and with 
" the Iroquois on the othe'r, have almost exterminated 
" them."— i^eL 1666, page 106, 



84 NOTES. 



[^ I And thither hastily I took 
My little chapePs store. 

In the propagation of a religion so fraught with forms and 
ceremonies as was the Catliolicisjn of that age, its peripa- 
tetic ministers found it necessary to go charged with some- 
thing more than the staff and scrip of the mere pilgrim. 
Accordingly, we find them encumbered with the furniture 
and paraphernalia of chapel service, rendering it necessary 
in such cases, for them to make their journeys by water. 
Thus civdization and discovery followed the courses of lakes 
and rivers ; and when the Father by cliance encountered 
the conreur des hois in the wilderness, he was prepared for 
the ministration of his holy office, confession and absolution. 
And when the spent and aged Marquette died upon the 
desolate shore of Michigan, in the progress of one of those 
long and painful journeys which were the labor of his life, 
the final rites of religion were administered to him, under 
his own direction, by his compagnoas du voyage ; who, when 
he had breathed his last, bore him to his rude grave to ihe 
sound of the little chapel bell, whicli had accompanied him 
in all his wanderings to knell his own mortal exit at last. 

['0] Straight from the land, across the bay, 
Towards •' La Porte des Morts^ 

A deep and narrow channel at the entrance of the Bay of 
the Puants — now Green Bay — received from the early voy- 
ageurs the name of L'C Porte des Marts, on account of the 
Indian tradition concerning a great loss of life that occurred 
by the wreck' of several canoe loads of natives, at that point, 
by being dashed upon the rocks in a sudden tempest which 
arose while they were making the passage, in one of their 
coasting expeditions. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE OLD DRAY HORSE. 



Along the dusty road, 

Along the granite pave, 
A lean old horse is dragging his load, 

A patient and humble slave. 
In hunger and pain he tramps, 

From dawn till close of day. 
And still by the light of the dim street lamps 

He drags his rumbling dray. 



1 1. 

His heart is dreary and cold, 

His limbs are spavined and sore, 



88 THE OLD DRAY HORSE. 

His withers are wrung, and with stripes un- 
told 

His back is calloused o'er : 
And still he onward crawls, 

The meek and tired old gray. 
But reproachfully turns his sightless balls 

To apostrophise his dray : 

III. 

" Oh weary, lingering mate I 

clinging, tiresome dray ! 

"Wast thou ordained by relentless fate 

To waste my strength away ? 
With shaft, and breeching, and pad, 

With strap, and buckle, and chain, 
To hang on my steps like a weight of lead 

1 strive to escape in vain ? 



I V. 

" For many weary years 
You've pressed upon my back, 



THE OLD DRAT HOESE. 89 

Till my sight has melted away in tears. 

And pains my members rack : 
'No word of kindness I know, 

From the pitiless brute I serve. 
His softest caress, a truculent blow, 

Bestowed with a villain's nerve. 



" To rid your close embrace, 

I've walked and walked away. 
But you always double your rumbling pace — 

Do you fear to lose your prey ? 
Like the felon's chain and ball 

You come, with your creaking wheels, 
And grudge me the time in my cheerless stall 

I'm eating my scanty meals. 

V I. 

" Sometimes in dreams away, 
As listless I drag my load, 
I see a frolicsome foal at play 



90 THE OLD DRAT HORSE. 

Upon the velvet sward. 
The sun is shining warm, 

And a streamlet gurgles there, 
And the colt is prancing around its dam 

Cropping the herbage near. 



VII. 

" I stop to taste the stream, 

Or gaze on the lovely place, 
But a painful awakening ends the dream — 

'Tis a blow to mend my pace. 
Oh ! has that gay young form 

"Which sported beside its dam, 
From blows, from labor, from famine and 
storm, 

Become the wreck I am ? 



VIII. 

" But I shall be free again. 
My bondage will cease with my breath ; 



THE OLD DEAY HORSE. 91 

And your strap, and pad, and buckle, and 
chain, 

Will all be severed by Death !" 
And along the dusty road. 

Along the granite pave. 
The mute old horse goes dragging his load, 

A patient and humble slave. 



L'INCONNUE. 



" They are looking at the figure of a woman, once 

" beautiful, and though her hair lies tangled and wet, and 
" her face is distorted from the effects of drowning, she still 
" charms that idle crowd with a melancholy interest. She 
" has a marriage ring on her finger. Two lockets are on 
" her breast ; and a brooch is suspended by a yellow ribbon 
" round her neck. For whom did she wear them ? Who 
" were dear to her ? To whom was she dear ? No one 
" knew her. God help her ! She alone then required to 
" be but recognized by him !" Details of (he Les Jar dines 
R. R. Accident. 



How ghastly and distorted 

Are those pale features now, 
O'er which bright smiles have sported ! 
How her glazed eyes stare ! 
And her dripping hair 
Trails o'er her pallid brow. 



93 



Yet traces of beauty linger 

On tlie form devoid of breath ; 
And still encircling her finger 
Is that coveted thing, 
The marriage ring ; 
But the bridegroom now is Death ! 

Oh ! would her husband-lover 

Know now those poor wrecked charms, 
And tenderly o'er her hover, 
Press the livid cheek, 
Or embraces seek 
From those cold and and rigid arms ? 

Perhaps she was the mother 
Of a dimpled, smiling girl, 
Whose infant hands would gather 

That now dank hair, 

And with fingers fair. 
Loop it in braid and curl. 

Oh ! bring her darling to her. 

As she lies there, stark and drear ; 



94 



Her warm embrace may woo her 

From the realms of death ; 
And her lisping breath 
"Wake her dull, leaden ear I 



ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 



"What art tlion, brilliant stranger, ycleped Comet ? 

Dashing for ages madly towards the sun, 
And then as madly darting ages from it — 

And on what fearful errand dost thou run ? 
Dost forth upon some diabolic tourney, 
Or ride in peace thy parabolic journey ? 



XI 



Art thou composed of real solid matter, 
Or is't a mass of gas you dupe us with ? 

Most of our savans now maintain the latter, 
And that at best, you are the merest myth, 

And represent you, body, head, and tail, 

A Jack-o'-Lantern on a mighty scale. 



9G ADDKESS TO THE COMET. 



III. 



These learned Paul Piys have all been busy, 
prying 
Into the secrets you so firmly keep ; 
Sighting their tubes along the course you're 
flying, 
In hopes to catch you " talking in your sleep :" 
And foiled, they vent their s^Dleen in sapient 

guesses 
About yoa, in their scientific messes. 



I V . 



They've seen the stars shine through your ter- 
mination, 
Ergo, its substance must be very rare ; 
As body, head and tail bear near relation. 
Ergo, your whole is quite as thin as air. 
And yet, some folks, by double vision merely, 
"See stars" by dozens, when there are none 
really. 



ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 97 



But, Monsieur Comet, since you are so nigh us. 
Relate some marvels of your lengthened race ; 

Drop a few hints as you are glancing by us 
To go careering through eternal space ; 

You've traveled some in "foreign parts," Fm 
told, 

And doubtless can a " wondrous tale " unfold. 



V I. 



And apropos of that same " wondrous tale," 
Of which some poet, Addison, or Cowper, 

Declares each night " the moon takes up," (I fail 
To recollect who 'tis that tells the whopper) 

Certes it was not your tail — not your true one : 

Or have you since been re-tailed with a new 

one ? 

5 



98 ADDRESS TO TIIK COMET. 



VII. 



I cannot make you out, tliough born a Yankee, 
And bred to quizzing each new comer mad. 

To " bow d'ye do ?" or " pretty well, I thank 'ee," 
You don't vouchsafe a single stately nod. 

"What passing strange, incongruous varieties 

Are all your haughty, traveled contrarieties I 

VIII. 

While fringed and bearded like a hirsute Kussian, 
And looking grave as shrouded Pitt or Peel, 

All of a sudden you " go off percussion," 

And whisk your " fixing " like the very de'il ! 

For one so prominent, } our ways erratic, 

Are, (you Avill excuse me) hardly — dimecratic. 



I X . 



Perhaps, professor of the art histr'onic. 

You're " starring it," to heaven's provincial 
hordes. 



ADDilESS TO THE COMET. 99 

Like some mad actor, whose disease, turned 
chronic, 
Impels him, " spouting," to the hostel boards. 
Or are you prompter when the dog-star rages, 
And struts his hour on the celestial stag-es ? 



Praj tell us now, about the rings of Saturn, 
And why the fop indulges in such gear. 

Or are they hoops, like those which every slattern 
Compounds of brass to spread her muslin here ? 

Of course they are not hoops, or else (between us) 

They'd hang, just now, upon the hips of Yenus. 



X I 



You've passed the Moon, and doubtless are ac- 
quainted 
With that young man the wanton, Luna, keeps. 
Pray, is his face as ugly as 'tis painted, 

When forth at us, on moon-light nights he 
peeps ? 



100 ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 

In that connection, tell us, if yon please. 
If, as some say, the moon is made of cheese. 



XII. 

It's not unlikely that so old a stager 
Has often ta'en Orion by the hand ; 

Or had a friendly hug with Ursa Major. 
E'ow, did the Bear give you to understand 

The Dipper on his tail was any sign 

That he's a Baptist, of the hard shell line ? 



XIII. 

Has met Auriga, that daft chiel who lashes 
His viewless steeds along the Milky way ? 

Or lent thy fires to bright Aurora's flashes. 
Who ushers in the glorious god of day ? — 

Perchance thine aimless flights might entertain us 

"With gossip current on the great Uranus. 



ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 101 



XIV. 



You've passed the eartli by in all styles and sea- 
sons, 

And know it thoroughly from line to pole. 
"Now answer truly, for I have my reasons, 

Did you, at either end, observe a hole, 
Dark and mysterious, with any clew 
To whether it might or might not reach through ? 



XV 



'Twould prove a god-send, if you've ever found it, 
And marked the spot by some old ice-berg 
nigh. 
'Twas lost by Mister Symmes, and round and 
round it 
His unlaid ghost now cruises constantly : 
And joined the search have Saxon, Celt and Gaul, 
But hitherto the hole's escaped them all. 



XVI. 



Prithee, Great Comet, do not be offended, 
About this liole I have one question more. 



102 ADDKESS TO THE COMET. 

I've questioned now beyond what I intended, 

But I'm concerned about tins polar bore. 
The matter, too, is one of monstrous gravity ; 
Is it a hole, or merely a concavity ? 

XVII. 

Most mighty voyager on the seas of light, 
What shifting panoramas greet thy ken ! 

So vast the measure of thy bournless flight, 
The mites and atoms that are worlds to men 

Are passed unheeded as you go and come 

Through Heaven's limitless, cerulean dome ! 



XVIII. 

What errand wafts thee through the fields above, 
With speed that shames the laggard solar ray? 

Art thou commissioned by omniscient Jove, 
To light at eve, his lamps that pale by day ? 

To trim the fires that fl.icker in the sky. 

As grand lamp-lighter to the courts on high ? 



ADDRESS TO THE COMET. ' 103 



XIX. 

Couldst thou impart a tithe of whatthou knowest, 
Or lead in thought, man's unbelieving soul 

Along the countless systems where thou goest 
The matchless wonders of the mighty whole 

Would flash so grandly on his ravished sight 

That feeble reason would be put to flight ! 

X X . 

Since first thou didst astound the earth primeval, 
And fright the rude barbarians of that age. 

Poor Adam's conscious heirs, foreboding evil, 
From thy fell presence, every ill presage ; 

And read, in thy capricious parallaxes, 

Portents of famines, plagues^ and wars and taxes. 

XXI. 

In these saltations, most unperiodic, 

To which thy fitful mundane calls are due, 



104: ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 

What various changes has thy glimpse spasmodic 

Detected here, the long lapsed ages through ? 
Events now lost to us by Time's slow ebb, 
To thee are wove in its most recent web. 



XXII. 

It was in one of thine eventful sallies, 

That, with a flourish of thine aqueous train, 

(As per that famed hypothesis of Halley's) 
Thou didst pour forth the great Deucalion 
rain. 

Which washed at once, our dirty planet's face^ 

And drowned incontinent the human race. 

XXIII. 

Again conjoined with some co-perturbator, 
You glared in concert on the startled earth, 

To herald in that wight, ycleped Eupator, 
With direful auspice of his tragic birth : 

And Roman blood, through Asia's reeking coast, 

Redeemed the sanguinary omen's boast. 



ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 105 

XXIV. 

Again, when like a threatening sword suspended, 
You bhized along the azure depths above, 

The single empire of fhe world was ended ! 
That sword the knot of tangled kingdoms clove, 

Pricked the old Csesars from the regal ring, 

And crowned great Chaos universal king. 

XXV. 

Then countless hordes of breechless, Pictish sav- 
ages. 

And Huns, and Goths, and Visigoths and boors 
O'erran the fertile earth, with fearful ravages. 

Turning the indigenes all out of doors ; 
And kept the world some centuries in a row. 
As their descendants seem inclined to now. 

X XVI. 

From Asia's teeming steppes the wild barbarians 
Poured over Italy, and Spain and Gaul : 

Robbed, burned, and plundered, and like true 
agrarians. 
The lands divided, bravely took them all. 



106 ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 

While Attila amid the ruins strode, 

And earned the title of the " Scourge of God !" 



XXVII. 

Six gloomy centuries, at length, passed over, 
While night held o'er tlie earth a sable pall, 

You came again to see tlie Nomian Rover, 
Like some charged meteor on Albion fall, 

Which bursting as it falls, by its own glare. 

Lights its rent fragments through the quiv'ring 
air. 

XXVIII. 

The crown of England, staked on bloody Has- 
tings, 

The conqueror, William, bravely won and wore ; 
Giving John Bull (then but a calf,) a basting. 

To rankle in liis flesh for evermore ; — • 
Making a breach no lapse of time effaces, 
Between tlie Saxon and the Gallic races. 



ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 107 

XXIX. 

Again you came with threatening locks and gory, 
When the grand Monarque reigned in all his 
power, 
To witness France's culminating glory, 

And date its swift decadence from that hour. 
How little then did gorgeous Louis dream 
That Bourbon blood should yet from scaffold 
stream ! 

XXX. 

And now ! — What bodes thy presence minatory ? 

What dire calamities dost now portend ? 
Declare. Our book-wise fools will scout thy story, 

And most composedly, from end to end. 
Ogle thy form through supercilious lenses, 
^ nd deem themselves the more important enses. 

XXXI. 

Art thou precursor of some mundane throe ? 
Or dost thou herald Slaughter's crimson reign ? 



108 ADDRESS TO THE COMET. 

What writhing people, maddened with their woe, 

Shall rise in might — to be cajoled again? 
What gloomy despots now shall hurl from far, 
Their pliant masses in the shocks of war ? 



XXXII. 

When thou return'st — ^but ah ! what paroxysm 
Has closed Earth's annals with one word, des- 
pair? 

Our planet, whelmed by some dire cataclysm. 
Swings, scathed and blasted, in its murky air, 

While heavenly Mend, her mission ended here. 

Unfolds her pinions for some brighter sphere. 



THE CURRENCY OF SIGHS. 

From Wall Street, with its low-browed tenants 
teeming, 
Unto tlie Golden Gate : — 
From Magellan, to where the tern flies, scream- 
ing) 
Out over Bhering's Strait : — 

• •• 

From Russia's confines to the fartherest islet 

That dots the austral seas. 
Whence commerce brings, for arsenal or toilet, 

Stores that enrich or please : — 

Where'er humanity maintains relations, 

And traffic buys or bribes. 
One coin alone is current with all nations, 

And families and tribes. 



110 THE CURRENCY OF SIGHS. 

iNTone is so prone, or of so lofty stature ; — 

So bowed, or raised so liigli — 
But pays, unwitting, to some pang of nature 

The tribute of a sigh. 



Thougb drawn beneath the rarest canopying, — 

Or, on the bare, bleak plain,: — 
The first faint breath that thrills the new-bom 
being, 

"Wafts back a sob of pain. 



E'en youth, that iaalcyon season of bright flowers 

Life's rosy, jocund dawn, — 
Youth sees its tinted rainbows through tear- 
showers, 

And sighs when they are gone. 



The lone Australian on his log is floating, 

And basking in the sun. 
Ko flux of time his happy heart is noting, 

Or how earth's (Currents run. 



THE CURRENCY OF SIGHS. Ill 

But now the mirror of his placid ocean 

Is dashed beneath his gaze ; 
His gorge is swelling with a new emotion, 

And undefined amaze : 



And heart (and log) are moved to strange vi- 
brations, 

As, with a deep-drawn sigh, - 
He sees the argosies of mighty nations, 

In sweeping pomp go by. 

Tlie sordid miser counts anew his gainings. 

And maunders o'er his store, 
And sighs are mingling with his sad complain- 
ings, 

Because there is no more. 



A splendid ship is on the deep careering, 

Tlie wind is fair and free, 
And hopes are wafted from the port she's nearing, 

To haste her o'er the sea. 



112 THE CURRENCY OF SIGHS. 

But on lier decks are wan and tearful faces, 

And, from each crowded den, 
De5i3airing sobs go up from bleeding races 

Of duskj, fettered men. 

"WTien warring hosts are on each other di*iven, 

With battle's maddening cries. 
Till both rain gore, and one is wholly riven, 

And, scattering, wildly flies ; 

What sickening scenes reward them on the mor- 
row. 
To whom a morrow comes ! 
Pale, writhing forms, torn limbs, and moans of 
sorrow 
From desolated homes ! 

Man's pride, vainglory, and the kindred passions 

Impel a constant strife 
For mere success : and this ambition fashions 

The tenor of his life. 



THE CURRENCY OF SIGHS. 113 

He courts dissensions, turmoil, feuds, heart burn- 
ings, 

And, having conquered, sighs 
To find that all his tortures, shifts and turnings 

Have won a barren prize. 

Thus through the rounds of toil, and strife, and 
pleasure, 

The hunted victim flies. 
Pursued by fate, and forced to drain the measure 

Of life's chill cup of sighs. 

The chase is up, the stricken quarry staggers, 

And falls, and gasps for breath ; 
The common gaol is touched, and kings and beg- 
gars 

Are mates and peers in death ! 



THE SWALLOWS. 

AFTEE BERANG-EK. 

A CAPTIVE on the Moorisli plain, 

With gaze turned upward to the sky, 
Beholds, while bent beneath his chain. 

The haj)py swallows twittering by. 
He knows they've left their summer haunts. 

And murmurs, lying on the sand, 
" Sweet birds, whom winter drives from France, 

Pray, tell me of my native land ! 

" Three years, at each return, I've seemed 
Of you some souvenir to pray. 



THE SWALLOWS. 115 

" From that dear valley where I dreamed, 

In lialcj^on peace, my youth away, 
Wliere bends the crystal rivulet. 

That treads the lilac-scented dale, 
Is there a cottage standing yet ? 

O, tell me of that happy vale ! 

" Perhaps youVe nested in the eaves, 

Beneath the roof that sheltered me, 
And pitied there the love that grieves 

A mother's heart unceasingly. 
Dying, she thinks each sound the steps 

To hear so long in life she strove ; 
She listens now — and now she weeps ! 

O, tell me of that mother's love ! 

" My sister — is she married yet ? 

And have you seen the merry throng 
Of youths and maidens there, to greet 

The happy bride with nuptial song ? 
And those brave lads who fought with me, 

Where battle's death-shafts thickest flew, — 
Have all returned unharmed and free ? 

O, tell me of those comrades true ! 



116 THE SWALLOWS. 

'' Perlia2:)s the battle's changing storms 

Have through that valley poured the fraj, 
And o'er those comrades' slaughtered forms 

The hostile stranger takes his way, 
From my own hearth the rightful heirs 

Drives forth with insults and with blows ;- 
In fetters here — no mother's prayers, — 

Oh ! tell me of my country's woes !" 



WHY DON'T HE COME ? 

Why don't he come ? My eyes are bleared with 
weeping, 
My widowed heart is sick with hope deferred ; 
When will his call relieve the watch I'm keeping, 

And that long silent voice agaiii be heard ? 
The days, and months, and years of his delaying 

Are blended in one dreary night of gloom, 
Which I have passed in sleepless vigils, praying 
That he'd come home. 

Why don't he come ? He said the leaves then 
springing, 
At his return should still be fresh and green. 
How oft they have sprung and faded without 
bringing. 
His truant footsteps to his hearth again I 



1 1 8 WHY DON T HE COME. 

At first there came some oft reciirrmg token, 

As if to save bis memory by tbe sign ; 
What need ? Can they forget who bow, heart-broken 
At memory's shrine ? 

Why don't he come, to see how time estranges 
The common friendships pledged to those who 
rove, — 
How sorrow works it sure but silent changes 

In those who vainly wait, and weep, and love ? 
One would he miss, wliose voice he heard at part- 
ing— 
That voice, alas ! is hushed forever now, — 
Who called him while the damps of death were 
starting 
Upon his brow. 

Why don't he come? Not all the glittering 
treasures. 
That freight the navies through the Golden 
Gate, 
Can buy me back my heart's once healthful meas- 
ures, 
Or check the current of my hastening fate, — 



WHY don't he come. 119 

Dispel tlie gloom in wliicli I am benighted, — 

Hestore the lost I live but to deplore, — 
Kevive again my hopes, all dashed and blighted 

For evermore. 

» 

Why don't he come ? Like traveler belated, 
Perhaps he stays and slumbers by the way ! 

Where was he faring when, with greed unsated 
Death claimed the weary wanderer as his prey ? 

Did I but know, to seek his nameless ashes 
My soul would garner all its wasting fires, 

Like the spent taper, which a moment flashes 
And then expires. 



THE DYING SCHOOL BOY. 



The Sim is slowly sinking, 

Down in the mellow west, 
And the summer haze tones down its rays, 

And settles to its rest. 

And through an opened lattice 

The softened sunbeams shed 
A radiance mild o'er a stricken child 

Pressing his dying bed. 

His fair hair falls in clusters 
O'er his forehead pale and high, 

And a steady light, but ah ! too bright, 
Gleams in his sunken eye. 



THE DYING SCHOOL BOY. 121 

Close by upon the table, 

Are idle bat and ball ; 
Satchel, and map, and his little cap, 

Are hanging on the wall. 

So silent 'tis, we listen. 

Between each long-drawn breath, 
And stifled sob, and low heart-throb, 

For the listed feet of Death. 

Then the hum of distant voices 

Comes floating on the air ; 
The voices sweet of his playmates greet 

The poor boy dying there. 

And from beneath his pillow, 

His kerchief drew with pain, 
And o'er his head the child essayed 

To wave it, but in vain. 

" Please wave it at the window," 

He smiling, faintly said ; 

" My flag they'll see and think of me, 

" Perhaps, when I am dead. 
6 



122 THE DYING SCHOOL BOY. 

" Please tie it to the lattice, 

" And let it flutter there !"— 
But his fair head droops, and his parted lips 

Close in a silent prayer. 

The sun has set, and twilight 

Into the chamber creeps : 
Hushed is the sob, the breath, the throb, — 

The little school boy sleeps I 



LITTLE EMMA. 

A TEAiN of angels passed this way 
And left a little one astray. 

A mother's fear hath clipped its wings, 
And clasped it to her breast ; 

The softest lullabies she sings 
To guard its tiny rest. 

Heaven hath no other gift more dear 

Than the sweet cherub sleeping there ! 

A year passed o'er, and day by day, 
New graces round its features play. 

Beguiled at once by watchful Death, 
The mother slept one night : 

When she awoke its sainted breath 
Had parted with the light. 

The angel-band had passed again — 

The little one had joined the train ! 



I LATE HAD A FLOWER. 

I LATE had a flower which gladdened my sight, 
And breathed on the morn its scented breath : 

But a chilling frost came on with the night, 
And my flower was plucked by remorseless 
Death. 

Oh, blithe was my heart, when, happy and gay. 
My Alice sat by me and prattled and smiled ! 

Oh, sad and drear, when she languished away 
And I bowed at last o'er my dying child ! 

In the fading light of an autumn day. 
She gave, me at parting, her little hand : 

Her lips scarce moved, but she seemed to say : 
" I am going now to the better land." 



I LATE HAD A FLOWER. 125 

I closed her eyes when her last sigh was breathed ; 

I tenderly laid her limbs along ; 
I pressed her lips with her sweet smile wreathed, 

And the brow with her golden tresses hung. 



I conld not feel that my child was gone, 

Though her pulse was still and her heart at 
rest ; 

And through all the dreary darkness alone, 
I pressed a cold form to my aching breast. 



But while the long night's still watches passed, 
A vision in slumber o'er me stole ; 

Before me a river, deep, and vast, 

With black, sullen waters: seemed to roll. 



I scarce could discern beyond the shore, 
For a mist flung over the deep its veil ; 

But methought that I heard a dipping oar. 
And cauglit the gleam of a flying sail. 



126 I LATE HAD A FLOWED. 

Oh ! I knew full well* the precious freight 

Of that bark which the mist concealed from 
view, 
And I stood on the bank of the fatal strait. 
And waved a " good voyage" to the unseen 
crew. 

Yes, I waved a good voyage to the bark that bore 
My dearest treasure forever away. — 

Forever ! Ah ! no ; but a moment more 

And I too shall glide through the mist-covered 
vray. 

I wept not then for the loved one gone. 

For I knew the parting would be but brief : 

The gloom of the night was dispelled by the dawn, 
And the joy of hope assuaged my grief. 

And I'm waiting the boatman's swift return, 
To launch on that dark, mysterious tide ; 

To pass with him over the mortal bourn 
And join my child on the other side. 



THE EQUINOCTIAL. 

The Equinoctial's come at last, 
The autumn skies are overcast, 

The storm-scud low is sailing ; 
A dismal, cold, and slanting rain 
Is pattering on the roof and pane. 

The gravel-walk, and paling. 

Abroad, a raw north-easter raves. 
The lake is tossed in frothy waves, 

And sails, and sailors, shiver ; 
The scudding schooner homeward steers, 
And, if it can escape the piers. 

Casts anchor in the river. 

The drayman leaves his smoking nag. 
To smoke his own "dudeen," and wag 



128 THE EQULNOCIIAL. 

His tongue beneath some awning. 
The shopping women keep in-doors, 
And idle clerks, in diy-goods stores, 

To idle clerks are yawning. 

The slip-shod housemaid with her mop, 
In vain to stop each leak and slop, 

In hall and entry slubbers ; 
The dripping news-boys, in and out, 
*' Tribunes " and " Heralds " hawk about, 

Wrapped up in india-rubbers. 



The urchin, when he leaves the school, 
Goes pUsh'2)lash through the yellow pool. 

Delighted with the racket ; 
Then, fearful that he may get ill, 
His dad with birch takes off the chill, 

By warming up his jacket. 

Prophetic geese have ceased to quack, 
Lame ducks no longer have to walk, 
Or sit, their feathers trimming ; 



THE EQUINOCTIAL. 129 

While sand-hill cranes, shanghais and storks, 
With life-preservers, floats and corks, 
Their lessons take in swimming. 

They have their use, these genial showers 
For Spring street now has water-powers 

To tempt the enterprising ; 
And though the ward is dry, in spots. 
There are no longer vacant lots^ 

And water-lots are rising ! 



6* 



GENTLE WORDS. 

How sweet are words of kindness 
From those dear ones we love ! 

How like celestial favors 

Showered on ns from above ! 

The heart, all seared with sadness, 
Revives and lives again, 

Like fainting summer flowers 
Beneath the welcome rain. 

The ways of life are thorny, 
Beset with snare and wile ; 

1^0 " flow'ry paths " are trodden, 
Except when dreams begaile. 



GENTLE WORDS. 1^1 

And every year we wander 

Along the dreary maze, 
A deeper tinge of sadness 

Comes o'er tlie mental gaze. 

'Tis true the cloudy curtain 

Above us sometimes parts, 
And gleams of balmy sunshine 

Fall on our drooping hearts. 

They are those words of kindness. 

That greet our grateful ears, 
From friends whose lengthened silence 

Is counted up in years. 

I guard those wordy treasures, 
As miser guards his hoards : — 

How costless, yet how priceless, 
Are sweet and gentle words I 



OUR JULIA IN HEAVEN. 

Far up in the misty Andes' side, 

Away from the summer's sultry glow, 
A calm and sequestered vale lies hid, 

Where the violets bloom by the melting 
snow. 
Deep cleft in the hoary mountain's breast, 

And cradled aloft in its mighty arms. 
That vale is a scene of peaceful resr. 

Secure from the frowns of the alpine storms. 
No winters their blights to its verdure bring. 
And it smiles in tlie bloom of eternal spring. 

The winding path to this vernal retreat, 

Is barred by steep crags and shelving rocks, 

Inaccessible save to the shepherd's feet, 
And his timid and half-reluctant flocks. 



OUR JULIA IN HiSAVEN. 133 

And hither in summer he leads the dams, 
From the arid plain and the withered grove ; 

He takes in his arms tlie tender lambs, 
And places them high on the cliffs above. 

And the bleating young, with imploring tone, 

Lean over and beckon the mothers on. 

I know that tlie Sheplierd has taken our child. 

And has lifted her tenderly up on high : 
That she breathes, where tlie zephyrs are soft 
and mild. 

Of the fragance of flowers that bloom in the 
sky. 
I cannot see the angelic throng. 

For the gushing tears my eye-lids fill ; 
I cannot hear the seraphic song. 

For my poor heart's sobbings will not be still. 
But a fondly imploring form I see, 
And I know that my Julia is beckoning to me. 



THE CHAUNT OF THE PANIC. * 

The Panic rages. Hot and sissing 
The great financial caldron's hissing ; 
While underneath, the crackling fires 
Are fanned by hags in whirling gyres, 
Who round and round in fiendish glee, 
Giggle in horrible jubilee. 

But ah ! the treasures that go in, 
Spurned with many a malicious grin — 
Gems and jewels from foreign marts, 
Hopes, and prayers, and broken hearts, 
Trappings of wealth and rags of wo 
Under the seething caldron go. 

l^ow a bundle of rail-road stocks. 
And now a factory for clocks, 



THE CHAUNT OF THE PANIC. 135 

l^ow a bank, with its useless locks, 
And now a whole town with streets and blocks, 
And public squares, harbors, and docks, 
And now a farmer's herds and flocks ; — 

The widow's mite, the stay of age, 
The orphan's scanty heritage, 
Corruption's bribe, the robber's spoil, 
The pittance of the poor man's toil, 
AVages of sin, extortion's fee, 
The gift of meek-eyed charity — 

Fields and forests, houses and stores, 
Mines with treasures of shining ores. 
Ships, and shanties, shares, and shops. 
The husbandman's unripened crops. 
The goods of mammon, the shreds of wo 
Under the seething caldron go ! 

And still no arm is stretched to save 

From this annihilating grave ! 

But old, and young, the staid, the gay, 

The devotee, from vigils gray. 

The learned, the meek, the high, the low. 

Into tlie fiery furnace go ! 



CHATEAUX EN ESPAGNE". 

In the innocent dreams of my cliildliood, 
Wliat beautiful. castles I reared, 

As I roved in the aisles of the wildwood, 
Or my bark o'er the tiny wave steered. 

Bright temples most tastefully steepled, 
Did I build in some land o'er the main ; 

And with still brighter beings I peopled 
My airy-built chateaux in Spain. 

But the dream-builded castles are faded, 
And. ruined, and tenantless stand. 

While a more humble mansion, unaided, 
I've reared in reality's land. 



THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 

I LOOKED in the house of mourning, 
As I passed by the open door, 
And the scene of distress 
Left its deep impress 
On my heart for evermore. 

'Twas scarce the hour of twilight, 
But the night of death was there ; 

For the unlit hall 

Held a subtle pall, 
And a corse lay on its bier. 

Ko showy outward tokens 
Announce a spirit fled, 

Nor nodding plume ; 

Nor lights illume 
"Where the lowly mourn their dead. 



138 THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 

Oil ! tlie sting of death liatli a venom 
Tor the poor no tongue can tell ; 

For the wealth of love 

Is all they have, 
And they shrink at the funeral knell 

A fond and widowed mother 
Had parted with her breath, 

And the orphans' wail 

Of anguish fell 
On the " dull, cold ear of death." 

I marked the elder sister, 
I^Tow guardian of the flock ; 

So mute her grief, 

It seemed her life 
Had passed in the direful shock. 

She sat in fearful silence. 
And gazed upon the bier. 

Slie breathed no sigh, 
And her vacant eye 
Distilled no moistening tear. 



THE HOUSE OF MOUKNING. 139 

In her agony of sorrow 
Another wailed aloud ; 

And with drooping head 

One bent o'er the dead, 
And with tears bedewed the shroud. 

The little ones were moaning, 
For none their transports chid ; 
And the youngest boy 
His choicest toy 
Had placed on the coflSn-lid. 

" Mother, awake !" he's crying, 
" They say that yon are dead ; 
But the supper hour 
Has long passed o'er, 
And your darling is not fed !" 

And the shades of night descended. 
And hushed is the house of Death ; 

For a whisper soft 

Is heard aloft. 
Borne on a spirit breath : 



1 10 THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 

" Look up, look up, my darlings. 
Who sit in the darkened room ; 
For a distant light 
Is gleaming bright 
And piercing through the gloom." 

" Look up, look up, my children, 
To that beaming ray of love ; 
Though dark and drear 
Is youf chamber here 
There's light for you above 1" 



PROGRESS. 

In ages past time moved with loit'ring pace, 
And men grew old scarce taking note of 
cliange ; 

Til© son, content to till his father's place, 
Had no vain wish in foreign climes to range. 

Tiie tardy mail that passed the yeoman's door. 
Perchance brought news of battles fought and 
won ; 

Yet news so stale that oft the war was o'er 
Ere men had learned that fighting had begun. 

On crooked roads, ill-made, and deep with mire. 
The plodding footman toiled through weary 
days ; 

Yet still behind ho left the mounted squire. 
Or coachman nodding o'er his long-tailed bays. 



142 PROGRESS. 

They builded houses in the olden time ; 

But by such slow degrees the work went on, 
Each passing age its course of stones and lime, 

Bestowed upon the pile descending down. 

The arts, too, languished, and the buzzing wheel 

And pounding loom usurped the spacious 
hearth ; 
Printers were thought to with the d — 1 deal, 

And new inventions held of little worth. 
But Franklin comes, armed with his Tcey and Tcite^ 

Unlocks the bars of occult science's stores ; 
Draws from the skies the swift electric li^ht. 

And on the earth the quivering levin pours. 

Morse gathers these and moulds them to his mind, 
And Jove's own lightning on his errands goes ; 

He speaks in England, and the fartherest Ind 
Echoes his language ere his lips may close ! 

The bubbling kettle to the mind of Watt 
Suggests a power that now all nature feels ; 

Reflective Fulton at tlie idea caught, 
And seas recoil beneath his glancing wheels. 



PROGRESS. 143 

The cowering horse, — once monarch of the plain, 
Emblem alike of beauty, strength, and speed, — 

Starts back agliast at the approaching train, 
As rushes past the flaming iron steed. 

Cities and towns on either hand arise, 

Spindles and wheels in every valley whirl. 

The rattling hammer to the saw replies, 
And ships in every sea their flags unfurl. 

The human face by photographic art 

A thousand thousand times is multiplied, 

New forms of beauty into being start, 
And marvels puzzle us on every side. 



THE SEASON TO DIE. 

Let ine not die with the year, 
When the leafless trees drearily wave, 
And the wild wintry winds round me rave ; 
From the icy embrace of the grave 

I shrink with reluctance and fear. 

Let me not die in the spring, 
When blossoms bespangle the earth, 
And nature, renewing her birth. 
Is mantled with blushes and mirth ; 

Then would death have its true sting. 

Let me not die when the sun 
Is lavishing treasures around, 
And harvests, that burthen the ground, 
Have the hopes of the husbandman crowned ; 

Still let the sands of life run. 



THE SEASON TO DIE. 145 

Autumn's the season to die. — 
Ripe autumn, the prime of the year, 
Ere thj gold-tinted beauties are sear, 
Let my life melt away like the tear 

That wells from fond memory's eye ! 



AUTUMN. 

The autumn winds are blowing, 

The leaves are crisp and sear, 
The birds are southward going, 

The fields are waste and drear. 
And since the birds and flowers 

Have their departure ta'en, 
Why should we not take ours. 

And sunnier landscapes gain ? 

I love the northern summer. 

With days so long and fair ; 
I love the larch-tree's murmur, 

Fanned by the balmy air 
But winter's snows are sifting 

O'er Athabasca lake, 
Ajid soon with clouds and drifting. 

They'll whelm the dell and brake. 



AUTUMN. 147 



And now the swan is winging 

Her whooping train on high, 
"Whose clarion notes are ringing 

Along the azure sky. 
Then with the choral army 

Why may I not take wing, 
And mid savannas balmy 

Await again the spring ? 



THE WEALTH OF A STATE. 

A nation's wealth does not consist in lands, 
Though they are fertile as the banks of Mle ; 

Not if each streamlet flows o'er golden sands, 
And golden harvests on each acre smile. 

Nor in the nmnber of its sons who roam 

O'er its domain, and proudly call it home. 

Nor yet in war's appliances alone, 

In loud-mouthed ordnance, or in hostile ships 
Bristling with armaments, and making trips 

For barren conquest, forth from zone to zone. 

Nor yet in arts, or lore, or endowed college, 
Or churches proud with spires that pierce the 
skies ; 

Or village schools — incipient seats of knowledge — 
Or roads o'er which the iron courser flies. 
(148) 



THE WEALTH OF A STATE. 149 

Not these, tliougli in jnst harmony combined, 
With that deep skill vouchsafed to human kind, 
Compose the wealth of nation, or of state. 
Exalt its rank, and make it truly great ! 

But there's a treasure, which nor bolt, nor bar, 

Nor lock protects, with cunning wards and 
springs ; 
Which is not ravished by the brand of war, 

Nor rusts amid the ease which dull peace 
brings. 
The robber may not count it as his spoil, 
The alchemist for it shall vainly toil. 
Nor is it found in waste of midnight oil ; 
It is not bartered for in foreign mart. 

Nor digged from earth in caverns dark and 
deep ; 
No crews devoted, from their homes depart 
To grope in arctic frosts, or unknown seas. 

Circle the Poles, or cling on Andes steep. 
Or earth encompass, this rare prize to seize. 
Oh ! it is free as light at height of noon, 
And Public Yirtue is the priceless boon ! 



150 THE AVEALTII OF A STATE. 

Lands may grow sterile, harvests fail, 

Gold spread its wings and flj away, 
The lone hills echo to the widow's wail 

For husband, sons, to fell disease a prey ; 
The wrath of ocean on whole navies fall. 
And whelm huge ships, their helpless crews and 

all; 
Consuming fires may towns and cities burn. 

And falling spire to humble cottage nod ; 
The stranger from the fated shores may turn. 

All desolated by the chastening rod ; 
Yet if amid the gloom that darkly reigns, 
The nation's /a^'z^A untarnished still remains. 
And Public Yirtue, like the Aztec fire. 

Gleams ever brightly in the nation's shrine, 
To highest honors may its sons aspire. 

And all unrivalled its chaste daughters shine ; 

For vjealth of truth is greater than the mine ! 



THE MUTINY OF THE SEPOYS. 

iNow doth the balmy east wind bring 

A low and plaintive wail. 
Like fancied shriek borne on the wing 

Of some spent Indian gale — 
And now the vales of Albion ring 

With slaughter's dreadful tale ! 

A conquered race, who, ages past, 

Have groaned beneath the rod 
Which spared not mystic faith, or caste, 

Or saint, or household god, 
To arms, from every hamlet rushed. 

From Punjab to Pegu, 
And turned to sting the heel that crushed 

The children of Yishnu. 



152 THE MUTINY OF THE SEPOYS. 

Louder by far, and fiercer than 

Tlie jungle tiger's roar, 
The vengeance-cry of Indus Stan 

Is sounding in Lahore, 
And carnage sets its fatal ban 

On Lucknow and Cawnpore ! 

With thirst for blood each bosom burns, 

Unseen th' imploring tear. 
Insatiate rage to mercy turns 

A deaf, unpitying ear. 
Mother, and child, and blooming- maid, 

Churchman, and soldier brave, 
Together slain, together laid. 

All share a common grave. 

But Retribution whets his knife. 

Thousands of miles away. 
And sternly counts the lives each life 

Thus ravished shall repay ! 
Arms, England, for the deadly strife. 

Her ships are on the way. 
And notes of vengeful war are rife 

From P)erwick to Bombay ! 



FANATICISM. 

O'er grassy plain, through mountain gorge, 

By rugged, canon'd glen, 
A band their forced hegira urge 

Far from the haunts of men. 

At length they reach a valley wide 
Where the sierras wild divide 

And hold a lake below, — 
An Alpine range on either side 
Whose towering peaks forever hide 

Their hoary heads in snow. 

Within this vale, and near the lake, 

The nomads diive the sacred stake — 

But nomads now no more ; 

Attained at last their Canaan seemed, 

And settled there, they fondly dreamed 

Their wanderings were o'er. 
(153) 7* 



] 54 FANATICISM. 

And liitlier drawn by tliat fierce zeal 
Religion's zealots only feel, — 

Deserting country, lionie, — 
With thought, and speech, and habits crude, 
A numerous, motley multitude 

To this new Mecca come. 

Mingling profanity and praise, 
A Christo-paynim fane they raise, 

And forth their banner fling ; 
Mitre and crown one of their kind — 
Treason and blasphemy combined ! — 

Their Prophet, Priest, and King ! 

Fanatics know no " golden mean," 
And they who late have victims been, 

ISTow persecute in turn. 
Deeming the " Gentile " righteous spoil, 
They hunt the stranger from the soil. 

And massacre and burn ; 
And still to swell their murderous train. 
Strike hands with Pawnees of the plain I 



A LEAP-YEAR COMPLAINT. 

BY A LADIES'-MAlsr. 

The women all seem bent 

To set their caps at me ; 
I wish they'd make themselves content 

To let me quiet be. 

I cannot walk about 

To take my exercise, 
But they in swarms come buzzing out 

Like greedy, gilded flies. 

I cannot stay within. 

The girls have found my door, 
And round it raise the direst din 

That man e'er lieard before. 



156 A LEAP-TEAR COMPLAINT. 

Fm plagued to death with " calls," 

And every day I've more 
Than " notes " enough to hang my walls. 

Slipped underneath the door. 

My only serving man 

Was by them so beset, 
He crazed, aad from my service ran: — 

I fear he's running yet 1 

Yet no relief I see — 

I cannot have them all, 
And if I show partiality, 

They'll drive me to the wall. 

I'd leave for Deseret^ 

And join the Mormons there • 
As many wives they say they'd let 

Me have as I'd desire — 

But should I make a move, 

Tlieir ever-watchful eyes. 
Made Argus-like by jealous love, 

Would fear to lose the prize. 



157 A LEAP-YEAR COMPLAINT. 

The more I fly their snares 

The more their snares increase ; 

I take this way to lay my prayers 
Before the new police. 



NICARAGUA. 

An ocean laves, on either strand, 
A narrow strip of fruitful land, 

Beneath whose clear and clement skies, 
"Warm l^ature bounteously supplies 

The tenant of this paradise 
His daily wants with lavish hand ; 
And Heaven's own winds, so soft and mild, 
Seem tempered to her favorite child. 

Yet human passion rankles there, 
And rages red, intestine war, 
Inviting strangers from afar 

To mingle in the fray ; 
tJntil on battle's billows tossed. 
With name, and fame, and honor lost, 
That favored, yet devoted coast 

Becomes the robber's prey. 



NICARAGUA. 159 

And now, embroiled, tlie nations round, 
Made jealous rivals for the ground, 

Their havoc ne'er surcease ; 
But still with sword and flaming brand, 
Consume and devastate the land, 

" And call the desert peace " 



FAREWELL TO THE YEAR. 

Farewell thou dead, departed year ! 

Return thou never canst again. 
And yet I have for thee no tear, 

I part from thee without a pain. 

Thy rarest flower but bloomed to fade, 

* Thy brightest rill the hoar-frost binds, 

The leaves that formed thy coolest shade 

Are now the sport of wintry winds ! 

Thy tuneful woodland choir has fled. 
Thy gilded insect world is dead, 
Thine autumn tints, which lingered last, 
Upon the earth are rudely cast, 
And thou art gathered to that vast. 

Uncounted and forgotten past. 
(160) 



FAREWELL TO THE YEAR. 161 

The Past ? 'TIs naught ! Without regret 

I see its dim declining sun 
In Lethe's blank oblivion set, 

Its light extinct, its cycle rnn. 

Its joys, its sorrows, sighs, and tears, 
Its wealth, its woes, its rage, its fears, 
Its wisdom, wit, parade, and show 
Are airy, shapeless phantoms now ! 
Its whole career, an aimless haste ; 
Its history, decay and waste ; 
Its loves, but fleeting passions vain ; 
Its passions, transient and inane ; 
Its wealth, a fragmentary mass 

WJiere life is struggling with decaj, 
With scarce vitality to pass 

Mementos to another day ; 
Its worldly-minded cunningness, 

And life-long garnered wisdom sage. 
A trick of harlequin, a guess 

Of self-conceited, dotard age. 
Its never-dying Hopes alone 
Are in the vernal future sown — 
That glorious Future, all our own ! 



APH.15.1361. 



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